Sovereign Insurance Group
Insuring Data Recovery
Customer Challenge:
Needed a dependable, yet efficient, method for restoring data in the event of a disaster
insurance (in-‘shur-_ens) n 1: Coverage by contract whereby one party agrees to guarantee another against a specified loss 2: a means of guaranteeing protection or safety
—The Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Defining Insurance
By definition, insurance agencies are tasked with protecting their customers’ homes, vehicles, health or businesses against loss. People rely on their insurance agency to help them in the event of an unforeseen loss such as fire, theft or accident. Because of their mission, insurance agencies are intimately familiar with loss resulting from disasters, but what are insurance agencies doing to protect themselves from disaster? In order to provide a high-level of insurance to its customers, insurance agencies need to protect themselves first.
An insurance agency’s most valuable assets are its customers, customer base and the information on each of those customers in its database. A typical insurance agency houses data pertaining to customer policies, deductibles and its own internal data such as employee records and payroll. If this data were lost, the ramifications would be huge.
If insurance agencies don’t protect their own data, then how can
they guarantee protection of their customers’ assets?
Sovereign Insurance, an independent insurance agency that provides business, auto, home and life insurance, has always taken its data protection strategy seriously. Licensed in 45 states, customers across the nation rely on Sovereign for top-notch insurance. For Randy Renz, CIO, the ability to restore Sovereign’s internal data in the event of a loss is a must for ensuring smooth operations.
Data Disaster
On July 5, 2002, Sovereign suffered a data loss and was unable to restore the data from its tapes. The only way Renz was able to keep things running was to put in an old set of drives that restored Sovereign’s data up until November 2001. This got employees back up and running, but all data from November through July was still gone. To get it back, Sovereign had to hire a disaster recovery company to do a deep scan on the hard drives. Luckily, Sovereign eventually recovered all of its data except for emails that had been filed during those eight months. Sovereign got back on its feet, but realized the importance of having a good backup and recovery solution. Sovereign had also started scanning all of its paper, making recovery even more critical.
After that harrowing experience, Renz started a serious search for a new way to protect Sovereign’s data. He turned to LiveVault’s Online Backup and Recovery service after a recommendation from AMS Services, Inc., a leading provider of insurance software, services and information for U.S. insurance companies. AMS had been providing Sovereign’s agency management system since 1996, and Renz was confident in their services and impressed by LiveVault’s offering.
“We were impressed with the secure, offsite backup that LiveVault offered. I had looked at a local vendor, but was not impressed. They housed everything in a secure place locally in Dallas, but did not have the extensive backup capabilities that LiveVault offered.”
- Randy Renz, CIO, Sovereign Insurance
LiveVault works by automatically and continuously backing up business server data via a secure Internet connection and storing it in a secure offsite facility, where it is available for immediate recovery in the event of a system failure, virus, human error or other disaster. The service goes beyond traditional backup methods by operating on a continuous, as well as scheduled, basis. This means that Sovereign Insurance, by selecting the continuous backup option, can recover data up to the minute of the data-loss event, rather than up to the last time someone remembered to do a tape backup. LiveVault’s Web-based interface also allows users to perform restores from any Internet connection.
Protecting the Payroll
Insurance policy data and customer records are important to Sovereign, but when it comes down to employee satisfaction, one piece of data they can’t live without is their payroll. Sovereign keeps all of its confidential information, original documents and payroll records on one protected drive.
A few months after Sovereign’s initial deployment, the LiveVault service was put to the test. Renz came into the office to find that his folders on the protected drive were gone, including the folder containing detailed payroll information. Somehow, one of the three people with access had accidentally deleted Renz’s entire folder. The folder contained all of Sovereign’s spreadsheets for each individual’s payroll. If the folder was lost, Renz would have spent days re-creating the master pay sheets to avoid a delay in posting payroll.
Renz immediately started the restore process with LiveVault. Within half an hour, he had all of Sovereign’s data back. He never had to take the server down, so all employees were still able to use the system, with the same level of performance. LiveVault had everything up and running in 30 minutes.
“LiveVault’s features allow me to perform highly specific restores to retrieve the exact data I am looking for,” said Renz. “I can choose an exact date and time to restore from, and then track the progress of what I am backing up.”
Payback Time
Since implementing LiveVault’s Online Backup and Recovery service, Renz’s restores have been flawless.
“As CIO, I’m responsible for maintaining a solid technical backbone for Sovereign that lets our employees perform at the highest capacity,” said Renz. “With LiveVault’s guaranteed recovery, I can rest assured that I’ll always be able to quickly recover data in the event of a loss. In addition, I also get the added convenience of being able to initiate a restore from anywhere I have Internet access. And, I know LiveVault’s continuous backup will minimize the amount of our data loss to minutes.”
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