Screen to Screen better expresses Face to Face in current times. Doesn’t it? Last week I was face to face, sorry, screen to screen with a leading Mumbai industrialist in the design and manufacturing of precision components for the Aerospace Industry. Serious R&D, Brilliant Engineers, Latest Design Software, and Patents differentiate them from others. Global Customers for their World-Class Products mandate business continuity. I had an interesting conversation with him about how they have rediscovered OPEX over CAPEX and adapted their systems to current times without compromising Data Security. Here are the excerpts.
My Question:
We would like to go through your thinking process, which led to this remarkable cost-saving, exemplary operating model, and the best possible security of your data at the moment.
His answer:
We are more in design than in manufacturing. Our design unit caters to the Oil, Gas, Aerospace, Defense, IoT, Chemical, and Pharma industries the world over. We have valuable intellectual property in terms of our data. We also have a talented team that creates such data. On one hand, we had to secure our data. On the other hand, we had to ensure the safety of our team. In normal circumstances, we used to keep all our design data on the premise, and the team worked on the data on the premise. Suddenly, the situation changed. We were forced to allow our team to work from where they were during the lockdown. Not only that, but also, we wanted to be prepared for such a situation any time in the future.
I had to deal with four difficult challenges. Fortunately, we have overcome these challenges and can continue our business without compromising data security, thanks to DLPbox and your team.
My Question
Interesting. What was the first challenge, and how could you overcome that?
His Answer
It was chaos. We have almost 16 TB of data on our file servers. The first challenge was how would our design engineers be able to work. How would they be able to share data and collaborate remotely?
We evaluated moving to the cloud. The recurring cost of AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud for 16 TB plus storage and 50 users was prohibitive.
Your team identified this challenge and confidently advised us to use DLPbox on the data center through a secured VPN. It solved one problem but left me skeptical.
My Question
If my guess is right, is it the second challenge that left you skeptical? What was it?
His Answer
Yes, precisely. It was like I was handing over my fortune and destiny to my engineers. If they copy it or share it with my competitors, I would be left competitively vulnerable. That would even expose me to huge liabilities arising out of the Non-Disclosure Agreements I signed with my customers.
Your team introduced the endpoint element of DLPbox on data center technology.
Your team explained the endpoint level of Information Security for those users. USB ports were blocked or allowed for inward-only data transfer. Only the enterprise email system (with tight vigilance) was accessible to the users. It restricted the Internet on these workstations to limited useful websites. This progressive step overruled my skepticism about data security but led to another level of challenge.
My Question
You are unbeatable. Please go on to describe the third challenge.
His Answer
While working from home, users copy data on workstations and further work on the same. By policy restrictions, data is safe from leakage or theft. They spend hours on their data. How will the backup of data happen? Your team introduced your DCDR technology. It takes silent backup of the data on workstations over the Internet without allowing any intervention by the user. I was mostly relieved. This exercise left me with a fourth challenge.
My Question
We are almost there. Please describe the fourth challenge.
His Answer
I already invested in 16 TB of storage on the premise. Buying DLPbox and hosting it on the Data Center was a huge CAPEX for me. I was also paying for email hosting, antivirus, etc. It was a good solution, but investment in such tough times could be the deal-breaker.
Your team offered something irresistible. They offered that DLPbox Solution would invest in DLPbox on our behalf, lease to us, and host it on the data center along with antivirus and G-Suite subscription at a monthly lease rental of approximately INR 35000 per month. That included everything. VPN, 16 TB storage, data center rental, antivirus, G-Suite, and cloud backup for disaster response.
It works out to be less than 2% of my company’s monthly payroll. In other words, it was just an increase of INR 700 to the salary of each employee.
This transformed IT infrastructure completely to OPEX from CAPEX with the most advanced collaborative, security, and disaster response systems.
It is a smart decision.
My Note of Thanks
Thank you for your candid input. We are glad that our team could help in these difficult times. We hope that you are using our signature features to prevent data loss from deletion, ransomware, and disaster and prevent data theft through USB, Email, and the Internet.
Good luck,