Semperis helps Fortune Global 500 retail company prepare for modern threats
A Fortune Global 500 retail company had a strong focus on business continuity and cybersecurity, with ongoing executive oversight. With a well-managed IT environment, mature processes, and a small but talented team of Microsoft Active Directory (AD) engineers, the board of directors wanted to be confident the company’s AD disaster recovery plan could help it bounce back quickly if hit by a natural disaster or cyberattack.
The retail company had an extensive Windows network and a large, complex AD environment: 15 domains; 500 domain controllers (DCs); 1,100 AD sites; 500 AD sites with DCs; and 60GB AD database (DIT).
Could a huge multinational corporation—with millions of customers, partners, and employees across the globe and round-the-clock business operations dependent on AD—optimize its disaster response to meet today’s threat landscape? Yes, with help from Semperis.
The challenges of AD disaster recovery in complex environments
The Business Continuity Planning (BCP) team charged with implementing the board’s mandate had performed an exhaustive review to identify critical applications and infrastructure. AD immediately stood out as an essential Tier 0 infrastructure that touched every aspect of the company, from store systems and online shopping to warehousing and logistics to company email and back-office operations.
AD also stood out as a significant gap in the company’s BCP plan. The InfoSec and Directory Services team was well-versed in the Microsoft guide to manual forest recovery. But even with experienced in-house AD engineers, the team knew that manual recover could take days or weeks of intensive effort—and system downtime. The impact on the business would be too great.
The benefits of cyber-first AD disaster recovery
The team performed a thorough evaluation of Semperis Active Directory Forest Recovery (ADFR). First, the team tested the functionality of the solution in a variety of disaster scenarios and found that it met all of their needs, including the ability to restore to alternate hardware. Next, the team tested the performance of the solution across multiple data centers. Once again, Semperis ADFR satisfied the company’s demanding requirements for speed and scalability.
When I saw the Semperis solution for the first time, it nearly brought tears of joy to my eyes. It is exactly what I hoped for in an AD recovery tool. Over the years, I’ve had numerous concerns about forest recovery, and Semperis addresses them all.
Lead, InfoSec Identity and Directory Services Team Lead, Fortune Global 500 Retail Firm
After giving the nod to Semperis and finalizing the deployment plan, the team quickly proceeded with the production install, which they completed entirely on their own. Day-to-day administration has been just as straightforward. In fact, during the first six months of usage, the team has not opened a single support ticket with Semperis.
Stress-free AD backup and faster AD disaster recovery
With an AD-specific backup and disaster recovery solution, the retail giant now had the confidence to face today’s cyber threats—and any other disaster.
Cyber recovery: If a ransomware, wiper, or other cyberattack takes down AD, the company can quickly rebuild its forests on clean servers, without re-introducing malware, thanks to Semperis’ patented Anywhere Recovery and Clean Restore technology.
Distributed and offline backups: Unlike bare-metal and system-state backups, Semperis backups are small and efficient. The company can maintain AD backups in multiple locations and offline, for maximum protection, speed, and flexibility during recovery.
Ongoing product development: The company wanted a solution with both a proven track record and a bright future. With Semperis’ strategic product roadmap and history of innovation, that’s exactly what it got.
While it’s great to know that Semperis is only a phone call away and available 24×7, it’s even better knowing that the solution works as intended.
