Trusted systems integrator & MSP provides banks in Malta with the strongest form of data protection at deepest level of their storage infrastructure

Safeguarding the financial vibrancy and banking system in Malta is a top priority for the Smart Technologies team. To achieve their goal, they implement the strongest form of data protection at the deepest level of their clients’ storage infrastructure. This approach ensures an essential last line of defense to thwart any potential threat.

"Before approaching Scality, we were backing up critical data on traditional storage, and we soon found out that there are limits to how much we could store in these legacy devices." — Karl Fenech, Head of Systems and Cloud, Smart Technologies

"Not only did those disks have storage limitations, but the update process was complex and time-consuming, and often resulted in system shutdowns." — Robert Azzopardi, CTO, Smart Technologies

Smart Technologies, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise platinum partner, discovered Scality ARTESCA during one of HPE’s presentations. What they heard sparked immediate interest among the team.

Smart Technologies has implemented a 200-terabyte Scality ARTESCA installation, addressing past challenges with update management. Previously, performing updates posed risks of downtime and other issues, making the process time-consuming and challenging. With ARTESCA, the team now has the flexibility to perform updates during production hours without interruptions. ARTESCA’s systematic update process enhances this capability by upgrading one node at a time, maintaining high availability throughout.

ARTESCA’s CORE5 technology also fortifies data protection against ransomware attacks, ensuring that backup data remains inaccessible for exfiltration, deletion, or encryption by attackers. This guarantees that, even in the event of a ransomware attack that compromises access to primary data, Smart Technologies can still restore the backup data securely.

Scalability is another highlight. In contrast to other solutions Smart Technologies evaluated, ARTESCA’s scalability allows them to scale rapidly and meet diverse client demands, providing as much capacity as necessary.

Smart Technologies was so impressed with ARTESCA’s capabilities that they opted to deploy it internally for their own backup needs. This internal setup allows them to provide secure, off-site backups for clients — following best practices, the recommended backup rules, and S3 object locking with ARTESCA’s immutability feature to enhance their defense against ransomware attacks. Unlike traditional 1:1 deployments, Smart Technologies hosts multiple customers on the same system, integrating ARTESCA into their infrastructure to deliver scalable cloud backup services within their cloud ecosystem.

Scality’s ongoing customer service and support have been a game-changer for Smart Technologies. For instance, when trying to integrate with Veeam solutions, Scality has been instrumental in assisting with any troubleshooting along the way. Robert points out that Scality ARTESCA offers features and benefits that are very difficult to find elsewhere: an object store based on the S3 protocol that can be installed on-premises is a huge plus, because solutions that provide the advantages of a true ‘cloud-like’ service offering are scarce.

Ransomware protection: The organizations Smart Technologies serves are often subject to strict data protection requirements. In Europe, the financial sector must meet Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) requirements by January 2025, and NIS 2 requirements as of October 17, 2024. DORA will ensure that companies back up data and critical systems regularly and that backups be stored securely off-site — so an organization’s data stays protected even in the event of a ransomware attack. Immutability comes in clutch here, helping Smart Technologies ensure this for their customers.

Data sovereignty: Another area of focus for many of Smart Technologies’ customers is data sovereignty, especially in banking institutions. While Smart Technologies provides the storage service, the data remains under customer control — customers have access to a portal to check on their data backups at any time and take action. The most reassuring thing about Scality, Robert says, is "how data is protected."

SOLUTIONS PORTFOLIO

Explore cloud service provider case studies