CASE STUDY
Across the world , local government organizations are taking on the challenge of serving rising populations with limited public funds . Take the vibrant city of Itaúna , in Minas Gerais , Brazil , which is growing by an estimated 1.1 % each year . The local governing body is keen to preserve the city ’ s unique blend of urban development and rural charm , which requires careful utilization of resources .
“ The city of Itaúna is one of a kind ,” said Cláudio Machado , CIO , Prefeitura de Itaúna . “ My wife is from here . When the opportunity to join Prefeitura de Itaúna arose , I couldn ’ t pass it up .”
As soon as Machado stepped into the role , he saw an opportunity : harness technology to effect radical change .
The organization ’ s new capabilities were soon put to the ultimate test when it was hit by a ransomware attack . MGDATA , the first Veeam partner worldwide to be recognized by Veeam as a specialist in ransomware protection , was primed and ready to respond .
“ MGDATA detected the threat immediately and blocked Internet access to stop the attack in its tracks ,” said Machado . “ They used Veeam ’ s Instant Recovery feature to restore our IT environment to the last known restore point , which was only 15 minutes previously . We were able to get most users up and running again within 24 hours , before restoring all services within 53 hours – a massive achievement . I don ’ t like to even consider what the outcome would ’ ve been if it wasn ’ t for Veeam and MGDATA .
With a desktop estate that was more than a decade old , it was no surprise that performance was unreliable and IT support contracts were out of date .
Data backups were handled on an ad hoc basis and without a dedicated solution .
“ The one advantage we had was that we were virtually starting from scratch ,” said Machado .
“ However , with our very limited IT budget , the challenge was working out what was possible . With new Brazilian data privacy laws coming into effect and the threat of cyberattacks growing , we knew it was time for change . We began searching for the right technology and partner to help us achieve a true Digital Transformation .”
Prefeitura de Itaúna teamed up with Veeam partner MGDATA to Drive a complete refresh of its IT environment .
MGDATA migrated all the organization ’ s IT systems to its private cloud platform and set up remote access for the municipality ’ s employees via thin clients on each desktop .
“ It was my idea to virtualize our systems and use a Raspberry Pi device – costing just $ 50 per user – to enable remote access ,” said Machado . “ I paid for a proof of concept using my own money and , once that was successful , persuaded the mayor to grant us a small amount of funding to scale up the approach across the organization . By choosing to work with MGDATA on the project , we got the benefit of their high-performance cloud infrastructure and skills .”
Specifically , Prefeitura de Itaúna took advantage of MGDATA ’ s expertise in data protection to build a new strategy with Veeam at its core .
“ Before Veeam and MGDATA , a cyberattack could ’ ve paralyzed our systems for who knows how long . Instead , we had most users back online with an RPO of just 15 minutes .”
Thiago dos Santos Nunes , Chief Technology Officer , MGDATA , explained why the company opts for Veeam to safeguard its customer systems : “ I am a data protection enthusiast with several Veeam certifications , and I ’ m also part of the Veeam Vanguard Program . Veeam is our solution of choice to safeguard our customers ’ data because they are the market leader and provide cutting-edge functionality .”
More than 1,300 Prefeitura de Itaúna employees now access IT services hosted on MGDATA ’ s cloud via approximately 500 thin clients .
Using Veeam , MGDATA protects 60TB of data , with critical systems backed up faster and more frequently than before .
“ Adopting the thin-client approach has Dramatically reduced our IT costs while Driving up performance ,” said Machado . “ It has also given us data protection capabilities that were out of reach before . For example , it used to take 48 hours to back up our key systems – that ’ s dropped to four hours , thanks to Veeam . We used to back up these systems every two days , whereas now we do it every 30 minutes .
“ With Veeam hosted by MGDATA , we cut backup times for key IT systems from 48 hours to four hours and increased backup frequency from every two days to every 30 minutes . As a result , we avoid backups overrunning and affecting performance , and if we need to use them , our backups are much more up to date .”
50 INTELLIGENTCIO LATAM www . intelligentcio . com