Customer Success Story: Building Resilient IT Architecture for Business Continuity

Executive Summary

While onboarding a new client, Secure Strategic Technologies (SST) conducted a standard review of IT systems. They quickly identified critical metrics such as maximum tolerable downtime (MTD), recovery time objective (RTO), and recovery point objective (RPO). These metrics define how long business functions can be offline and how much data loss is acceptable. This proactive assessment revealed significant risks: the client relied on a single aging server and a single internet connection for its critical processes, without redundancy or manufacturer support. To meet the agreed-upon MTD and RTO targets, SST created a strategic roadmap with budgets and phased plans. After evaluating both cloud platforms and on-premises options, an on-premises server platform was selected because of workflow and software requirements. The resulting design included redundant hardware, failover capabilities, vendor support, and a firewall refresh with dual-WAN failover. This case study demonstrates how aligning IT architecture with business goals reduces risk and enhances resilience.

Customer Overview

Customer Name: Confidential Professional Services Firm

Industry: Professional Services

Location: Midwest, USA

Size: 20–50 Employees

Challenge

During onboarding, SST conducted a comprehensive assessment of the client’s environment. Many critical processes relied on applications hosted on a single server and internet connection, yet there was no documented MTD, RTO, or RPO. The review revealed:

• No hardware redundancy: A single power supply and storage subsystem increased the risk of downtime.
• Lack of network failover: A single internet circuit meant even minor outages could disrupt critical operations.
• Inconsistent backups: Infrequent and untested backups put data recovery at risk.

Assessment & Goals

Working with leadership, we established MTDs and RTOs for each business process. The client specified that critical applications could not be down for more than two hours (RTO) and could only tolerate four hours of data loss (RPO). Additionally, SST developed a financial strategy with budgets and phased investment plans. Both cloud platforms and local server solutions were evaluated. While cloud options offered flexibility, the client’s workflows and software requirements necessitated an on-premises setup to ensure compatibility and performance. Goals included:

• Design a resilient server platform with redundant hardware, RAID storage, and vendor support.
• Improve network reliability by deploying a next-generation firewall with higher throughput and dual-WAN failover.
• Establish tested backup and recovery procedures aligned with the agreed RPO.

Solution

Resilient Server Architecture

SST deployed a new on-premises virtualization server equipped with dual hot-swappable power supplies, RAID storage, and manufacturer support. The platform was designed for scalability, with the ability to expand into a cluster for future high availability.

Network Upgrades and Failover

A next-generation firewall was deployed with gigabit throughput, enhanced security, and dual-WAN failover, allowing traffic to automatically reroute to a secondary connection during outages.

Backup & Disaster Recovery

Hourly image-based backups with offsite replication were set up to meet the four-hour RPO. Failover processes enable workloads to be restored quickly, ensuring recovery within the two-hour RTO.

Results

• Met MTD/RTO/RPO targets with resilient hardware and tested recovery.
• Eliminated single points of failure through redundancy in servers and internet connectivity.
• Improved network performance with higher throughput and seamless failover.
• Aligned costs to strategy by pairing hardware investment with operational budgets for support, monitoring, and disaster recovery.
• Right-sized solution by evaluating cloud and local platforms and selecting an on-premises server that met workload requirements.

Key Takeaways

• Onboarding reviews are essential to identify hidden risks before they affect business operations.
• Aligning IT design with business goals requires clear MTD, RPO, and RTO targets.
• Including financial planning and platform evaluation ensures the right balance of resilience, cost-efficiency, and performance.
• Proactively investing in redundancy and failover removes vulnerabilities that could otherwise cause costly downtime.