Overview: The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) needed a comprehensive 5-year Disaster Recovery Plan for its data infrastructure spanning eight locations across the state. Each location operated with Microsoft HCI Clusters connected via 1-Gbps circuits, handling all network traffic, including disaster recovery operations. These systems are critical for supporting the Department’s transportation services throughout Florida, a state frequently impacted by severe weather events, including hurricanes and flooding that can threaten IT infrastructure.
Challenge:
FDOT faced several challenges related to disaster recovery and business continuity, including:
- Network Bandwidth Limitations: Each district operated with only a 1-gbps circuit on FDOT’s network, handling all network traffic, including Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) requirements.
- Geographical Vulnerability: Florida’s susceptibility to hurricanes and other natural disasters creates significant risk for data centers and infrastructure.
- Inconsistent Recovery Capabilities: The absence of a standardized disaster recovery approach across all eight locations led to potential vulnerabilities and recovery time inconsistencies.
- Cloud Integration: The Department had begun using cloud repositories and DRaaS with replication for subsets of data, but needed a cohesive strategy to integrate these with existing on-premises Veeam environments.
Solution:
Radiant deployed disaster recovery specialists, IT infrastructure experts, and cybersecurity professionals to design and implement a comprehensive disaster recovery plan.
Key components of the solution included:
Assessment and Discovery
- Conducted comprehensive interviews with IT Service Managers at all eight locations
- Documented each location’s disaster recovery requirements, capabilities, and gaps
- Inventory existing hardware and software assets
- Assessed current disaster recovery operational status
Comprehensive Disaster Recovery Plan
- Developed a unified plan incorporating requirements from all eight locations
- Aligned recommendations with industry best practices
- Optimized use of existing hardware, software, and services without requiring additional purchases
- Created standardized procedures and protocols for disaster scenarios
Strategic 5-Year Roadmap
- Established location-specific recommendations for hardware, software, and services
- Defined implementation timing and phasing recommendations
- Created annual goals and milestones across the five-year timeframe
- Outlined operational best practices specific to each location
24/7 Monitoring and Support:
- Established continuous monitoring of HCI servers to detect and respond to anomalies.
- Provided round-the-clock support to ensure rapid recovery in case of an incident.
Technologies Used:
The disaster recovery initiative centered around several key technologies:
- Microsoft HCI (Hyper-Converged Infrastructure): The core infrastructure platform deployed at all eight locations, combining compute, storage, and networking in a unified system.
- Veeam Backup & Replication: The existing on-premises backup solution being extended to cloud environments for comprehensive data protection.
- Cloud Repository Services: Used for centralized data compilation and storage across eight distributed locations.
- Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS): Implemented for specific critical data subsets requiring heightened protection and availability.
- Static DNS Configuration: Deployed across all HCI clusters for network addressing and service discovery.
- Seeding Devices: Used for initial data population to the Cloud Vendor, facilitating the transition to cloud-based disaster recovery capabilities.
Results:
- Uniform disaster recovery protocols and capabilities across all eight locations, ensuring consistent protection and recovery timelines.
- More efficient use of existing hardware and software assets through strategic planning and consolidation of disaster recovery approaches.
- Improved connectivity through additional 2-gbps circuits, reducing potential bottlenecks during disaster recovery operations.
- A clear 5-year implementation roadmap provides predictable budgeting and resource allocation for the department’s evolving disaster recovery needs.
- Alignment with industry best practices and government standards for disaster recovery and business continuity.
- Reduced time to recovery through standardized procedures and optimized infrastructure deployment.
Conclusion:
Through strategic staff augmentation, FDOT successfully implemented a state-wide disaster recovery plan for its HCI servers. Our solutions enhanced operational resilience, improved data security, and ensured minimal disruption to critical transportation services during adverse events. Radiant didn’t just support disaster recovery, we helped drive a transformation. With scalable, secure, and smart continuity solutions, FDOT is now equipped to keep Florida moving, rain or shine.
