Strategic Server Upgrade Helps Knaus Cheese Improve Security and Business Continuity

Executive Summary

When aging infrastructure put production at risk for Knaus Cheese, SST stepped in with a secure, scalable server upgrade that transformed their IT environment. With virtualized workloads, faster performance, tighter access controls, and tested disaster recovery, the business is now stronger, safer, and better aligned with industry standards. This upgrade was more than a hardware refresh — it was a strategic move toward cyber resilience.

Customer Overview

Customer Name: Knaus Cheese
Industry: Food Manufacturing
Location: Wisconsin
Size: ~100 Employees

Challenge

Knaus Cheese was relying on aging server hardware and an unmaintained Active Directory environment, both of which posed significant risks to business operations and cybersecurity. The infrastructure showed signs of instability, and there was no clear recovery plan in place in the event of a failure. In addition to potential downtime affecting production systems and financial tools, legacy Active Directory accounts and outdated permissions increased the risk of unauthorized access, lateral movement, and internal threats. The lack of system hardening and modern controls left the business exposed to both operational disruption and compliance challenges.

Assessment & Goals

SST conducted a proactive risk assessment and discovered:

• Hardware over 7 years old with no vendor support
• Inefficient backup processes with uncertain recovery
• Limited fault tolerance in the current environment
• Gaps in cybersecurity safeguards on legacy OS versions

The goal: Modernize the core infrastructure to support business continuity, improve performance, and align with best practices for security and data protection.

Solution

SST designed and deployed a modern server infrastructure solution:

• Virtualized Environment: Migrated services and applications to isolated virtual machines running Windows Server 2022, hosted on a Proxmox hypervisor for improved manageability, scalability, and hardware efficiency.
• Security Hardened: Established a secure configuration baseline using CIS benchmarks, deployed Huntress EDR to detect and respond to advanced threats, and conducted a comprehensive Active Directory audit—removing legacy accounts and strengthening access controls to reduce attack surface.
• Redundant Backup: Implemented Axcient backup solutions with both local and off-site replication, ensuring quick recovery and business continuity in case of data loss or system failure.
• Performance Boost: Upgraded to SSD-based storage across the environment, resulting in faster load times and improved performance for business-critical applications.
• Disaster Resilience: Created a documented recovery plan and successfully tested failover procedures to validate business continuity readiness and recovery time objectives.

Results

• Faster Performance: Application load times were reduced by more than half after migrating to SSD-backed virtual machines, significantly improving day-to-day user experience.
• 40+ Legacy AD Accounts Removed: The Active Directory cleanup eliminated outdated user and service accounts, tightening internal security and reducing the attack surface.
• Recovery Time Reduced from 2+ Days to Under 4 Hours: With Axcient’s local and off-site backup solution and a documented recovery plan, the client now confidently meets strict RTO objectives.
• Increased Operational Confidence: Business leadership now have greater peace of mind knowing systems are secure, backed up, and resilient against disruption.
• Positioned for Cyber Insurance Readiness: The upgrade aligned with insurer-preferred best practices, making it easier for the client to qualify for cyber liability coverage.

Key Takeaways

• Legacy infrastructure may be silently risking your operations
• Strategic upgrades can deliver more than performance — they can enable security, resilience, and compliance
• Partnering with an MSP like SST ensures that infrastructure investments deliver business results