AEC firm bolsters ransomware protection & cyberinsurance with Nasuni
About Highland Associates
Founded by architects and engineers in 1988, Highland Associates has designed everything from residential properties to mission-critical facilities, including cloud data centers. This deep familiarity with the cloud is one of the many reasons the firm’s IT department initiated a shift away from traditional file storage infrastructure.The challenge
Highland Associates works to reduce synching load times and protected storage refreshes.
The VPN connection between Highland Associates’ main locations was proving difficult, with synching Revit models taking too long to load and leading to issues with creating renderings. Highland Associates had begun using the Autodesk Construction Cloud, but this wasn’t fast enough for internal revisions. Given the increasing hardware cost, the Highland Associates’ team was wary of their next storage refresh, and the ransomware threat had turned cybersecurity into an executive-level concern.How Nasuni helped Highland Associates
Nasuni supports protecting Highland Associates’ assets with ransomware protection.
The Nasuni File Data Platform automates data protection through continuous file versioning to the cloud. Highland Associates further strengthened its security with Nasuni’s Ransomware Protection Service, which proactively detects, alerts, quarantines, and reports on incidents.Nasuni’s solution provides additional Cyberinsurance ROI benefits.
One of the unexpected benefits? Cyberinsurance is essential for some of its customers, but before Nasuni, few carriers would offer the firm a policy. Once Highland Associates strengthened its position through Nasuni and other solutions, the firm received bids from 4X as many carriers. Highland Associates could choose a policy 2X as significant for roughly the same price and from a better provider. “We have a more robust carrier and better coverage, so the ransomware investment paid for itself,” Bruce Sobocinski, Sr Director of IT at Highland Associates, explains. “Cyberinsurance is like car insurance. It’s not if you’re going to use it, but when, and you better have a good policy.”Nasuni’s ransomware allows Highland Associates to sleep soundly.
For Sobocinski, Nasuni’s ransomware protection has additional advantages. “Honestly, my sleep has gotten a lot better since moving to Nasuni, now that I’m not worrying about failed backups or ransomware,” he says.The Nasuni File Data Platform ensures a flexible scale.
Capacity now scales cost-effectively in object storage. “The scalability, given our data growth, and the way Nasuni links us all together on one platform is amazing,” Sobocinski notes.Multi-Site access
Each office enjoys fast, secure access to file data. High-speed file synchronization and global file locking eliminate version conflicts and ensure architects are working on the most recent versions.15X performance boost
“It used to take 15 minutes to open a file,” says Sobocinski. “Now it takes maybe a minute.” Yet this 15X gain in performance is not just a convenience, it’s business critical.Speed = savings
Sobocinski says the faster performance translates into cost savings — a message that resonates powerfully with the executive board.Nasuni supports Highland Associate’s shrinking infrastructure.
Highland Associates only needs to cache around 5% of its total storage on local appliances to provide the rendering performance and flexibility the firm’s architects and designers need. “Our next server refresh is coming up, and I’m excited because our footprint should be shrinking a lot because we’re pushing so much data out [the cloud],” adds Sobocinski.That reduced loading time on people’s workstations, multiple times over the course of a day, pays for Nasuni in a few weeks.
The Nasuni difference
Highland Associates was drawn to the Nasuni File Data Platform’s flexibility and the ability to opt for multiple clouds. The data center design business at Highland Associates has been expanding rapidly in recent years. The strategic alliances Nasuni fosters with leading hyper-scalers are critical to the firm’s growth. Since then, Highland Associates has seen multiple benefits from switching to hybrid cloud storage with Nasuni.Industry: AEC
File data platform: Nasuni
Use cases: Data protection; NAS consolidation; global file synchronization; data intelligence
Benefits: 15X faster to open Revit models; intelligent ransomware protection; effortless scalability; high-speed multi-site collaboration; rapid ROI; cyberinsurance preparedness