My Father’s World

30,000 families rely on My Father’s World to protect their personal data

My Father’s World serves over 30,000 families each year and it takes its responsibility to protect their personal data very seriously, as Scott Sorrell, IT manager for My Father’s World, explains: “As we process payments, we need to be payment card industry (PCI) compliant. Initially, we would use regular anti-virus and anti-malware software, but we found that this significantly affected the performance of our computers. This leads to constant signatures and definitions updates that can be a strain on resources and systems. We wanted a more lightweight solution and I was intrigued by Webroot's (now OpenText) premise of turning around the notion that the software needs to identify the ‘bad’ actors. Endpoint Protection defines the safe parameters, and alerts to activities outside of these. Threat prevention happens in real time, transparent to users.”

My Father’s World has leveraged Endpoint Protection for the last 20 years. “Our track record over all these years has been amazing,” says Sorrell. “We have responded to alerts, of course, but have had no incidents at all. We love the central management interface that gives an at-a-glance overview of all our devices on a single screen. This makes our lives really easy.”

Together, the Carbonite (now OpenText) and Webroot (now OpenText) solutions have become critical parts of our business. Our clients’ data is fully protected, and our systems always available, even in the case of a natural disaster. Cloud deployment has been a real gamechanger for us, and we enjoy our long-standing partnership with OpenText and VAI.

Comprehensive backup and disaster recovery services with Carbonite by OpenText

Because My Father’s World is based in tornado country, system backup and disaster recovery are constant worries. For this reason, the team used to run a complete parallel infrastructure, approximately eight miles from its primary location, with software managing daily backups between them via a high-speed link. As the organization grew, maintaining and supporting the redundant servers and infrastructure became cost-prohibitive and far too resource-intensive. In talking to ERP software partner VAI, a better solution was found. My Father’s World leverages VAI software to run its business, from managing inventory, to purchasing and customer orders. As an established OpenText partner, VAI suggested that My Father’s World adopt VAI cloud-hosted versions of Server Backup and Cloud Disaster Recovery (CDR).

Deployed onsite, Server Backup stores copies locally as well as in the secure OpenText (formerly Carbonite) Cloud. It offers complete business continuity to the My Father’s World team, with daily and forever incremental backups with flexible retention options, supporting both data protection and compliance needs. CDR provides a dedicated, remote team of continuity and disaster recovery (DR) specialists that combine advanced technology with proven best practices and early-warning tracking systems to ensure the availability of My Father’s World mission-critical systems in the cloud.

“We signed up for a 48-hour recovery service level agreement (SLA) with CDR,” comments Sorrell. “That works well for our business model, and we really like that nothing is left to chance. Although we have never needed to use the service in an emergency, every year the team guides us through a scheduled DR test and conducts certified health checks to ensure we are ready for any scenario. We currently have 13 different systems included in our recovery plan. At our last test, this was completed by CDR within just nine hours. If we need to recover a specific file, we can very easily dip into our archives and retrieve it within minutes.”

We currently have 13 different systems included in our recovery plan. At our last test, this was completed by CDR within just nine hours. If we need to recover a specific file, we can very easily dip into our archives and retrieve it within minutes.

Data security and business continuity with Webroot and Carbonite combination

Like many organizations, My Father’s World takes out cybersecurity insurance. As insurance companies are becoming more educated about current cyber threats, the process to apply for insurance is becoming more comprehensive. My Father’s World is subject to a cybersecurity insurance audit and Sorrell expects new recommendations as a result: “Although we have a great backup and disaster recovery strategy in place with the Carbonite (now OpenText) solutions, and Webroot (now OpenText) protects our systems from intrusions, we are aware that people are often the weakest link in an organization. As such, we will explore Webroot (now OpenText) security awareness training to arm our employees with the best knowledge to prevent them falling victim to phishing attempts and malware.”

He concludes: “Together, the Carbonite (now OpenText) and Webroot (now OpenText) solutions have become critical parts of our business. our clients’ data is fully protected, and our systems are always available, even in the case of a natural disaster. Cloud deployment has been a real game-changer for us, and we enjoy our longstanding partnership with OpenText and VAI.”