Persistent systems strengthens defences against fast-evolving cyber threats

Every sector in the global economy faces a growing threat from cybercriminals that are developing increasingly sophisticated ways to steal valuable data or hold it for ransom.

Persistent Systems is critically aware of the challenges for itself and its clients. As Debashis Singh, CIO at Persistent, explains, “Ransomware attacks are now widespread, and being targeted by cybercriminals is unfortunately an inevitability for many companies. While we have extremely tight cyber security protocols at Persistent, we are never complacent. For ourselves and our clients, we work continuously to ensure that we can always recover quickly if we ever become a victim of a cyberattack or experience unexpected downtime.”

“Our goal was simple,” continues Singh, adding further, “We aimed to grow our operations quickly without compromising on security, providing assurance to all our stakeholders. After examining a wide range of approaches, we decided that moving our cyber resilience operations to the cloud was the best way to ensure that we could recover quickly and prevent disruption in the event of a cyberattack. Downtime is entirely unacceptable for our business and clients, which is why we always aim to achieve a 24-hour recovery time objective and a 1-hour recovery point objective.”

Strategic initiative to redesign cyber security

To strengthen its defence against disruptive and damaging cyberattacks, Persistent launched a strategic initiative to redesign its cyber security and resilience strategies. For robust data security and rapid recovery at scale, they selected Commvault Cloud, powered by Metallic AI, as its one-stop cyber resilience platform.

To ensure that Commvault Cloud could meet its exacting standards, Persistent completed a series of rigorous tests. Singh says, “We ran a ransomware attack on the solution and assessed whether Commvault Cloud could copy and restore the data without corrupting or compromising integrity. Commvault Cloud passed all of our tests with flying colours, which gave us the confidence that it was the best solution for our new cyber resilience initiative.”

Why Commvault Cloud?

Integrated with the company’s Microsoft Azure cloud environment, Commvault Cloud enables Persistent to create immutable, air-gapped copies of its core systems and data while enhancing efficiency by automating many routine data protection tasks. With Commvault Cloud, IT team members no longer need to log in to a specific on-premises server. Instead, they can access and manage data and applications from any location with an internet connection.
“We were impressed with the user-friendliness of Commvault Cloud,” comments Singh. “For us, cyber resiliency means putting the right systems and processes in place to guarantee that you can recover to a business-as-usual state if unplanned downtime occurs. Commvault Cloud is vital in helping us achieve precisely this and with full data integrity,” he adds.

“Data drives everything we do at Persistent, so it’s essential to us that we can trust every vendor we work with to protect our critical information. Commvault is committed to helping us design a rock-solid cyber resilience platform that suits our needs throughout the project. Knowing that Commvault is also developing additional ways to protect and secure our data as new threats emerge is also a huge plus,” he states.

Post implementation scenario

After implementing Commvault Cloud, Persistent ran a real-world disaster recovery drill, which is an exercise that the company repeats regularly to maintain around-the-clock data protection.

“Initially, we set out to achieve an RTO of 24 hours,” says Singh. “With Commvault Cloud, we achieved an RTO of 8.2 hours, which was 66 percent faster than our initial target. We also exceeded our 1-hour RPO, achieving an actual RPO of less than 22 minutes. Crucially, we conducted these tests using real data and ran transactions on the recovered systems in a production environment to guarantee no data integrity issues. Commvault Cloud proved that we could recover quickly in a real-world scenario and confirmed that diligence on cyber resilience and data security truly pays off. Even if a cyberattack hits us, we can now have full confidence in maintaining excellent client service levels.”

Improvements to RTO and RPO are just one side of Persistent’s cyber resilience transformation and a sign of broader enhancements across the company. Singh explains, “By moving to the cloud, we can meet surging demand for our services quickly and securely. With Commvault Cloud combined with a fully planned disaster response, we are very well placed to protect our core systems and our customers’ data from evolving cyber threats.”
Singh concludes, “We plan to work with Commvault to cut our recovery time and further reduce our recovery point objective. Ultimately, we aim to keep services running, continue our success, and provide the best possible IT services.”