Organisations are modernising their security strategies and ensuring they operate with a resilient Business Continuity plan to prepare for potential challenges. Here, Dan Morgan, Global Head of Cloud and Infrastructure at Dr. Martens, offers insight into the organisation’s business priorities; security, resiliency and global availability of cloud, and explains how it worked with 11:11 Systems to manage its cloud transition, which now includes 11:11 Cloud Backup for Veeam Cloud Connect and 11:11 Backup for Microsoft 365.
Dr. Martens is an iconic British brand founded in 1960 in Northamptonshire. Originally produced for workers looking for tough, durable boots, the brand was quickly adopted by diverse youth subcultures and associated musical movements. Dr. Martens has since transcended its working-class roots while still celebrating its proud heritage and, six decades later, ‘Docs’ or ‘DMs’ are worn by people around the world who use them as a symbol of empowerment and their own individual attitude.
Worldwide data retention and protection for the digital age
With 158 stores and 191 third-party stores around the globe — not to mention a burgeoning direct-to-consumer (DTC) business, which now includes 13 websites — Dr. Martens is the definition of a truly modern, global business. What it needed, however, was a truly modern, global data retention and protection strategy.
Dan Morgan, Global Head of Cloud and Infrastructure at Dr. Martens, along with his team of engineers, is responsible for directing and overseeing the company’s long-term infrastructure strategy. With Dr. Martens and its data growing at a rapid pace, it was clear to Morgan that the company could benefit greatly from the security, resiliency and global availability of cloud. This meant moving away from traditional data retention strategies, including some of its on-premises environments.
“Technology, particularly cloud technology, has become ever more critical to the business. Over time, our IT strategy is to migrate from traditional on-premises infrastructure to cloud infrastructure,” said Morgan. “This is so we can benefit from increased resilience, increased performance capacity and remove the need for expensive hardware refreshes. We needed a solution that integrated into our existing estate and could be managed easily by our team.”
To help the business keep pace with modern data retention and protection best practices, Dr. Martens turned to 11:11 Systems to manage its cloud transition, which now includes 11:11 Cloud Backup for Veeam Cloud Connect and 11:11 Backup for Microsoft 365. Globally available and fully-integrated with Veeam’s industry-leading technology, 11:11 ensures that Dr. Martens’ data is secure and available continuously no matter where it lives, from London to Sydney to Los Angeles. For Morgan and his team, this translated into the most precious of IT commodities: peace of mind.
“The entire 11:11 experience has been so positive,” said Morgan. “The team was remarkably helpful and supportive throughout the entire implementation process, from hearing and understanding our requirements to getting the solutions deployed quickly. We evaluated other cloud service providers, but they simply couldn’t meet our needs for global availability and compliance. It’s clear that 11:11 is recognised as an industry leader for a reason.”
Building true resilience with 11:11 Systems
When talking with Morgan, a single theme stands out: The importance of resilience. With today’s ever-shifting IT landscape, businesses, especially those with the global footprint of Dr. Martens, simply cannot afford to be caught off guard by vulnerabilities. That’s why, when evaluating potential cloud service providers, Morgan prioritised the ability to ensure resilience for Dr. Martens and its global network — in the face of hardware failure, increasing cyberthreats, IT skills shortages, supply chain delays and any other potential disasters.
In the end, 11:11 offered solutions designed to meet the highest possible standards for security, compliance, performance and availability, the combination of 11:11 Cloud Backup and 11:11 Backup for Microsoft 365, served to modernise Dr. Martens infrastructure simply, cost-effectively and securely. With the cloud console, 11:11’s unified management platform, Morgan is also afforded unmatched monitoring, control and visibility into the company’s workloads.
This, along with 11:11’s dedicated on-boarding, support and account management teams, means Morgan and his team can be as hands-on or hands-off as their workflow dictates. “11:11 and its solutions don’t require a lot of hand-holding, or day-to-day management. That’s one of the reasons why we chose it. Before, if things were to go horribly wrong, it might have been a painful experience for us, especially with such a small team,” said Morgan.
The ever-present threat of cybercrime
Perhaps the biggest threat to business resiliency today is, of course, cybercrime — which continues to skyrocket for organisations of all sizes and sectors around the world. Ransomware attacks, for example, are expected to impact a business, consumer or device every two seconds by 2031, up from every 11 seconds in 2021. Over that same time frame, the total global costs of ransomware are expected to increase from US$20 billion to a staggering US$265 billion. As attacks increase in frequency, size and sophistication, so too does the relevance of backup solutions that offer data multi-layered protection.
“We take cybercrime very seriously, especially as our brand becomes more and more recognisable,” said Morgan. “11:11 Cloud Backup provides that extra level of comfort and resiliency. If we were to get compromised, we know we’re in safe hands.”
With 11:11, Dr. Martens boasts a truly modern and resilient Business Continuity strategy with the ability to protect its data from a wide range of external and internal threats. The final piece to this strategy was 11:11 Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365, which helps fill the gaps in Microsoft’s limited retention policy.
While Microsoft 365 has transformed productivity in the workplace forever, it simply wasn’t designed with data protection in mind. That’s why Dr. Martens opted to increase the long-term data protection and retention capabilities for its more than 4,000 Exchange, SharePoint Online and OneDrive users.
“While the Microsoft standard service is fine in terms of keeping data safe, we needed something that was going to offer us more functionality than the traditional default,” said Morgan. “11:11 Backup for Microsoft 365 just works. It’s less about saving time and money on a day-to-day basis and more about improving the company’s overall level of service and resiliency.”
Morgan views Dr. Martens’ commitment to promoting and ensuring security and resiliency with 11:11 as a reflection of the company’s ultimate commitment to its key stakeholders and supporters.
He concluded: “Without the 11:11 Systems solutions in place, we would be carrying a much higher level of risk. We’ve now got the best of both worlds — the luxury of increased service quality and resiliency without the burden of expending precious time and management resources.”
