Des Moines, IA 900+ Employees Higher Education

Overview

Drake University serves approximately 3,500 students across diverse academic disciplines, including law, business, pharmacy, arts and sciences, and education. As a digitally forward institution, the university depends on technology to deliver a high-quality academic experience and ensure consistent access to learning platforms, communication tools, and critical administrative systems.

With a small infrastructure team managing the university’s IT environment, reliability, efficiency, and security are top priorities. Drake University has long embraced innovation in its approach to technology, continually seeking ways to modernize and support its growing needs while maintaining strong compliance and cybersecurity standards.

Specific Technology Challenges

Before partnering with Choice Solutions, Drake University relied on two on-premises data centers and a backup system built on aging, end-of-life technology. Their primary solution, based on Datrium (later sunset by VMware), acted as both their main storage and backup platform, a setup that introduced operational risks and made data protection more complex than it needed to be.

Managing these systems was time-consuming and expensive. Disaster recovery testing was limited in scope and difficult to execute, and the need to comply with federal regulations like the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) added further pressure. With rising cybersecurity threats and the burden of maintaining hardware across multiple sites, Drake recognized it was time to simplify, secure, and modernize.

Opportunity for Improvement

Drake University saw an opportunity to simplify operations by moving away from its legacy systems and transitioning to a more modern, cloud-ready platform. The university wanted to retire its secondary data center, reduce operational costs, and improve overall system performance. A key objective was to gain a clearer, more auditable disaster recovery process while meeting the stringent data protection standards required for GLBA compliance.

By adopting a managed service model, Drake University aimed to free up internal resources, reduce complexity, and gain access to specialized technical support. They needed a solution that could streamline backup and recovery processes, protect against ransomware threats, and allow for faster and more complete system recoveries, without requiring additional infrastructure investments.

Solution for Success

To address these needs, Drake University partnered with Choice Solutions and implemented a managed backup and disaster recovery solution powered by Assured Data Protection and the Rubrik platform. This fully managed service gave the university a secure, scalable, and easy-to-manage environment, while removing the burden of maintaining its secondary data center.

The Rubrik-powered solution enabled Backup as a Service (BaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS), delivering enhanced protection and compliance while simplifying day-to-day operations. With Rubrik’s Live Mount functionality, Drake University now has the ability to recover systems rapidly, minimizing downtime and disruption.

Key benefits of the solution included:

• Full retirement of the university’s second data center
  
• Elimination of hardware refresh costs
  
• Faster, auditable disaster recovery testing
  
• Immutable backups and ransomware defense
  
• Full compliance with GLBA backup and recovery requirements
  

The implementation was smooth from day one, with responsive support from both Choice Solutions and Assured ensuring the solution was up and running quickly and effectively.

Why Choose Choice Solutions

Choosing Choice Solutions means gaining a partner who understands that modern IT success depends on simplicity, security, and strategic insight. For Drake University, that meant moving away from costly, high-maintenance infrastructure and toward a smarter, fully managed backup and disaster recovery solution.

By combining Assured Data Protection’s trusted services with our team’s deep experience in higher education IT, we helped Drake University retire unnecessary infrastructure, meet compliance demands, and reduce recovery times. Our approach delivers peace of mind by simplifying operations, reducing risk, and freeing up your team to focus on what matters most.

When you work with Choice Solutions, you’re not just adopting new technology, you’re gaining a long-term partner committed to your institution’s resilience and success. Contact us today to see how we can help your organization achieve the same confidence in your backup and disaster recovery strategy.