CUSTOMER SUCCESS
AWS DISASTER RECOVERY: PASADENA CITY COLLEGE
About the Company
Pasadena City College (PCC) provides over 30,000 students annually in the San Gabriel Valley with a high-quality, innovative and dynamic learning environment that inspires student success. Founded in 1924, today Pasadena is the nation’s third largest community college. PCC is the #1 ranking California Community College in awarding Associate degrees and first-year retention rates.
The Vision and Challenge
PCC’s IT department wanted to enhance its IT disaster recovery (DR) plan so that in the event of a disaster, it could provide uninterrupted service for its campuses and students. Prior to working with InterVision and implementing a new strategy, PCC used a tape backup system and trucked the tapes to an offsite backup site on a monthly basis. Even though this strategy was secure, it would have been difficult for PCC to quickly and efficiently recover in the event of a serious outage or disaster.
The Outcome
InterVision conducted a DR assessment for PCC and determined that the legacy offsite tape backup strategy for all of PCC’s data could be dramatically improved by shifting the backup and restore strategy to the AWS cloud. In order to facilitate this strategy, InterVision designed and implemented an AWS architecture and recommended the use of Commvault software to automatically allow PCC to back up and restore its data to the cloud, and/or back to the PCC datacenter in the event of a disaster. The InterVision team worked in partnership with the PCC team to design and implement the new AWS architecture, implement the Commvault software, test the new system and seamlessly migrate this new DR process to the AWS cloud. The cloud architecture design, and backup & restore strategy includes the following elements:
- Development of new AWS cloud architecture for PCC
- Configuration of the Commvault software
- Test and deployment of the new back-up and restore service
Prior to implementing the new solution, it would have taken PCC days and possibly weeks to back up and restore its datacenter and applications, costing them hundreds of hours to complete the effort. With the new AWS/Commvault back-up and restore solution, PCC can quickly and easily restore its entire datacenter in a relatively short amount of time and staff effort.
AWS Services Utilized:
- S3
- Glacier
- IAM
- EC2
- VPC
- Route 53
- RDS
Partner Products & Services Utilized:
- RISC Cloudscape – Network scan and assessment
- Commvault – Back-up and restore
- CloudCheckr – consolidated billing
