The French Red Cross trusts Cohesity for migration, management, backup, and data protection

The Challenge

The Red Cross wanted to simplify the process while complying with easy-to-monitor SLAs, automating it as much as possible, and taking advantage of the benefits offered by the cloud, including exporting data to Amazon S3 when needed and managing data in the cloud. They also wanted to be able to extend existing functionality with a solution that offered APIs.

All while maintaining control over the budget.

Once these specifications were identified, the Red Cross IS team turned to its long-standing IT partner, Skill Partner, to analyse the market.

The Solution

Migration to Cohesity

“The Cohesity solution quickly became unanimous,” said Yves Couturier, National Head of Production. “From the first exchange with the Cohesity team, we got along. They understood our needs very well and their confident and serene approach confirmed our choice.”

A first agreement was signed to migrate to an on-prem cloud system before converting the license to a software as a service mode in early 2022. The Red Cross initially adopted Cohesity DataProtect, in a project piloted and implemented by Skill Partner, who is also responsible for the maintenance department.

The migration took approximately two weeks, during which the data was encrypted and transferred securely for disaster recovery purposes. The handling was done quickly.

For Couturier and his team, “The simplicity of the interface was vital. Our small team can’t afford to waste time on backup or worry about whether backup operations have been completed, we needed a solution that could give us a very clear picture of real-time data to make the right decisions.”

Cohesity helps ensure that…applications and services to the public that would become inoperative in less than a second in the event of an outage are maintained, which could result in very serious situations for people whose health, and in some cases survival, depends on the ability of the Red Cross to function fully.

Yves Couturier

National Head of the French Red Cross Production Department, The French Red Cross

The Results

Flexibility and availability

Couturier sums it up this way: “For me, a good product is a product I never hear about, except to say it’s great! This is the case with Cohesity.”

All flows and data transmitted from the various applications used by caregivers, administrators, and emergency physicians are encrypted, stored, protected, and instantly accessible when needed.

Data relating to SSIAD (Home Nursing Services), which includes medical data as well as personal data, relating to both beneficiaries and Red Cross employees, are thus saved using Cohesity systems. Backup protects the entire stack, from the physical server to the files and applications.

In the same way, on the HR side, the Cohesity platform backs up multiple environments that process large volumes of anonymised data, sometimes replicated, to meet different needs (receipts, training, etc.). The 18,000 pay slips generated each month are also saved in this way.

“Our ultimate goal is to manage our operations as much as possible via the cloud, and the flexibility of the Cohesity architecture and data security allow us to project ourselves all the more serenely in the continuation of this collaboration,” says Olivier Geremy, Head of Security Architecture Strategy (SAS).

With drastically reduced backup times, the team can focus on other projects with higher added value, serving its various audiences, state, departmental and European partners, private investors, and all the individuals to whom the Red Cross provides assistance to on a daily basis or punctually.

“Cohesity helps ensure that data and IT services are available or made available. In doing so, it helps ensure that applications and services to the public that would become inoperative in less than a second in the event of an outage are maintained, which could avoid very serious situations for people whose health, and in some cases survival, depends on the ability of the Red Cross to function fully,” concludes Couturier.