Pearl River Community College fortifies security with a virtual ‘air-gapped’ data vault – in Cohesity FortKnox
Until recently, PRCC kept one backup on campus and replicated it
to a disaster recovery facility around 50 miles away, using Dell EMC
Data Domain and Veeam. But an uptick in cyberattacks on colleges,
including one that hit PRCC, prompted IT leaders to add another
backup in a third location isolated from the college network.
“If we can’t restore data from our local backup or the disaster recovery facility, we need a virtual air-gapped copy in the cloud as a fallback,” says Kevin Lomax, Director of Technical Services. The IT team also wanted stronger access controls, including MFA and a requirement that at least two people approve critical actions. Ease of use was essential because just one system administrator manages backups as well as servers.
“If we can’t restore data from our local backup or the disaster recovery facility, we need a virtual air-gapped copy in the cloud as a fallback,” says Kevin Lomax, Director of Technical Services. The IT team also wanted stronger access controls, including MFA and a requirement that at least two people approve critical actions. Ease of use was essential because just one system administrator manages backups as well as servers.