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XTEK: Protecting the Front-line Protectors with Sovereign Cloud

October 30, 2020

For almost 40 years XTEK has been at the forefront of Australia’s Homeland security efforts. A leader in the design, production and retail of high-quality front-line combatant products, XTEK has built its reputation on protecting the ‘frontline protectors’. Acutely aware of the vulnerabilities operating online, XTEK turned to Sovereign Cloud Service Provider AUCloud to protect their own digital ‘frontline’.

Challenge

As a service provider to Government defence and law enforcement agencies and the military and space sectors, XTEK is highly attuned to the security needs of its customers.

Like many organisations, as the business has grown, XTEK has looked to digital technology to enable its business and improve productivity. For XTEK, like many organisations, the Microsoft 365 suite has become a critical business enabler.

Understanding its responsibility to secure its M3565 data, XTEK identified the need for a reliable backup solution. Growing data repositories across multiple sites also highlighted the need for improved data storage and archiving. To streamline data management and compliance, XTEK’s preference was for an appropriately secured, central data source.

Security of our data and protecting the commercially sensitive data of our clients is a top priority. We know how vulnerable data is to being shipped around the world. This is not a risk we are prepared to take. The fact that AUCloud is a sovereign cloud IaaS provider provided peace of mind that our data would always remain in Australia, under our control.

Bob Quodling
Chief Operating Officer, XTEK

Solution

With a reputation for high quality Infrastructure-asa-Service (IaaS) solutions, XTEK selected sovereign cloud provider AUCloud’s M365 Backup-as-aService (M365 Baas) and Storage-as-a-Service (STaaS) solutions to do the job.

IRAP certified to the PROTECTED level controls of the Australian Signals Directorate’s (ASD) Information Security Manual (ISM), AUCloud’s M365 BaaS and STaaS, provide XTEK a complete security solution with the same level of functionality and scale typically associated with global cloud offerings.

Using AUCloud’s M365 BaaS, XTEK can backup, retain and restore data, including if it is accidently deleted or malware or virus infected. With added protection against ransomware, AUCloud’s M365 BaaS, provides complete backup support for Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams

Because XTEK is always in control of its data, they can determine detailed backup policies, tier longer term backups to lower cost object storage and restore files individually or in bulk.

Built using S3 compliant Cloudian Hyperstore, AUCloud StaaS provides S3 compatible object storage that functions as both ‘hot’ (active) and ‘cold’ (archive) storage. Workloads can be processed in parallel while the Cloudian hyperstore node architecture ensures data transfer bottlenecks are prevented. Using the AUCloud Portal and relying on high speed transfer that does not degrade bulk data retrievals, XTEK can organise data, manage access and automate processes themselves. Like M365 BaaS, the ability to ‘self service’ means XTEK is in full control of their data.

Outcomes

Using M365 BaaS and StaaS XTEK now has confidence that its operational data, including the commercially sensitive data of customers in its supply chain, is secure and in the event of any disruption, easily retrievable with the integrity of the data maintained.

Limitless storage scalability provides peace of mind that XTEK has stable and reliable infrastructure to support its continued growth. The flexibility to manage its own workloads and to tier data to meet backup and retrieval requirements ensures XTEK has full transparency and control of data access, management and cost.

The most consistent feedback we get from customers is how easy it is for them to on-board and use our IaaS and how much control they have in managing their data. This is exactly what the user experience should be when using genuine cloud based services – that’s what makes cloud so flexible, agile and cost effective.

AUCloud

Benefits

Limitless scalability – proven to exabyte scale AND without disruption to users

Protection against data loss in the event of a hardware failure

Fully S3 compatible hence guaranteed compatibility with storage requirements

Enhanced security: AUCloud provides specialised security features that are not affordable for smaller businesses

XTEK only pays for what it uses with complete transparency of pricing and billing

Assurance that all XTEK data, including commercially sensitive data remains in Australia

XTEK Case Study

DataGovernmentMicrosoft 365Tech
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