Burapha University Improves Cloud Backup with Amazon S3

Protecting Burapha University's expansive data trove, from student records to research papers, is the critical mission of its Computer Center. Backup is the cornerstone of its IT infrastructure, and cloud storage has emerged as a key player in its disaster recovery strategy. Previously, system data backup resided within the university's data center. Now, Amazon S3 bolsters their defenses with an additional layer of cloud-based backup.

“Due to technological advances and the ever-increasing amount of terabyte-level data stored at Burapha University, the importance of a strong backup system becomes increasingly clear.”

This article explores Burapha University’s improved cloud backup solutions, dissecting their benefits and uncovering how they mitigate cyberthreats. Discover insights from Mr. Wittawas Puntumchinda, Director of the Computer Center of Burapha University, who spearheaded this data security upgrade by adopting cutting-edge Amazon S3 technology.

“University IT systems are inevitably prime targets for cyberattacks, with evolving ransomware constantly pushing security boundaries. Public universities, in particular, bear the brunt of this challenge, struggling to stay ahead of relentless threats. Rather than passively expecting attacks, Burapha University actively embraces digital adaptation, particularly by prioritizing big data security to ensure seamless operations across all sectors relying on the databases we manage.”

Mr. Wittawas said, “To counter increasingly sophisticated ransomware attacks like data encryption and deletion that target backups, the Burapha University IT team is deploying cloud backups as the ultimate defense for our critical terabyte-level data.”

From sophisticated ransomware to devastating natural disasters, universities face a multitude of everevolving threats. These can strike at any time, with increasing severity, leaving data vulnerable. To combat this, universities are turning to cloud backup solutions for maximum reliability, flexibility, and costeffectiveness.

Amazon S3: The all-in-one solution for data backup

Burapha University ensures data resilience by leveraging Amazon S3 for cloud storage and backup, enabling rapid and seamless recovery even in unforeseen IT disruptions. Even in the face of cyberattacks, Burapha University's IT team leverages Amazon S3's secure servers to restore complete and accurate data within minutes, guaranteeing operational continuity and minimizing disruption to administrative functions.

Mr. Wittawas stated, “The best approach to data security is to prevent threats from the outset. Instead of passively waiting for attacks, Burapha University is redefining data security through cutting-edge technology, shifting from reactive to proactive defense. By migrating our data backup to the cloud, we're seeking the ideal provider that best meets our operating system’s needs with unmatched agility, flexibility, and reliability, ensuring maximum operational uptime and data resilience.”

From Pain Points to Sustainable Strategies

Burapha University has long relied on Veeam Backup & Replication for on-premise backup, to safeguard its complete data history. To ensure future-proofed security and flexible recovery, the IT team is investigating Cloud Backup Data as an additional solution. With its robust recovery capabilities and longterm cost-effectiveness, Cloud Backup Data emerges as a compelling choice for enhancing the university’s data protection strategy.

Why Burapha University Chose Amazon S3 for Cloud Backup

• Amazon S3's disaster recovery capabilities enable Burapha University to achieve 100% data recovery certainty in even the most severe cyberattacks.
• Amazon S3's ability to recover terabytes of data within minutes allows Burapha University to minimize operational downtime and maintain seamless functionality despite data disruptions.
• Amazon S3's annual budget planning capabilities make it the most cost-effective long-term solution.

"Compared to traditional tape backup, cloud backup offers significant cost savings for Burapha University," stated the Director of the Computer Center. "Our IT team is relieved of the burdens associated with tape-based systems, including infrastructure maintenance, frequent server purchases, ongoing version upgrades, and resource-intensive management."

Cost-effective in long-term investment

Recognizing the increasing vulnerability of data to global threats, Burapha University transitioned decisively from budgetary allocations to operational expenditures for cloud-based disaster recovery. Burapha University has consequently adopted a cloud-based approach with Amazon S3, which not only significantly reduces data vulnerability but also offers substantial cost savings through its flexible operating expense model.

"Mindful of budget constraints, Burapha University opted for Amazon S3 to achieve significant cost savings throughout the entirety of hardware lifespan for data backup. Purchasing additional hardware would necessitate software expenses and require allocating new personnel to manage a separate onpremise backup system, ultimately exceeding the cost of simple hardware and software acquisition," said the Director of Computer Center.

Burapha University's Move to Amazon S3: From Concept to Collaborative Approach

Drawing upon the strategic partnership between SIS Distribution (Thailand), a trusted and authorized distributor of AWS Cloud in Thailand, and First One Systems, a leading cloud solution provider for Thailand’s public and private sectors, Burapha University adopted the Amazon S3 solution as a strategic roadmap for optimizing its data management operations. Their in-depth evaluation of Burapha University's Big Data landscape informed the S3 implementation, aligning perfectly with their data management objectives.

In response to Burapha University's requirement for a cost-effective and flexible cloud backup solution for long-term offsite backups, the teams proposed a two-tiered Amazon S3 strategy to optimize performance and cost for different data types. Leveraging Veeam Backup & Replication and scale-out backup repositories (SOBR), the teams implemented Amazon S3 Standard (S3 Standard) for Capacity tier needs and Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval for Archive tier data retention. This solution ensures seamless offsite backup and aligns perfectly with Burapha's operational requirements.

Features of Amazon S3 Standard (S3 Standard)

S3 Standard offers high durability, availability, and performance object storage for frequently accessed data. With low latency and high throughput, S3 Standard is ideal for a wide variety of use cases: cloudbased applications, dynamic websites, content distribution, mobile and gaming applications, and big data analytics. S3 storage classes can be configured at the object level, and a single bucket can contain objects stored across S3 Standard, S3 Intelligent-Tiering, S3 Standard-Infrequent Access, and S3 One Zone-Infrequent Access. You can also use S3 lifecycle policy to automatically transition objects between storage classes without any application changes.

Key Features:

• Performance with low latency and high throughput
• Designed for 99.999999999% durability for objects in multiple Availability Zones
• Resilient to events that impact all Availability Zones
• Designed for 99.99% data availability over a given year
• Supported in terms of availability with the Amazon S3 Service Level Agreement
• Support SSL for data transfer and data at rest encryption
• S3 lifecycle management for automatic object migration to other S3 storage classes

Features of Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval

Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval is an archive storage class that delivers the lowest-cost storage for long-lived data that is rarely accessed and requires retrieval in milliseconds. S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval allows you to save up to 68% on storage costs compared to using the S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA) storage class, when your data is accessed once per quarter. S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval delivers the fastest access to archive storage, with the same throughput and milliseconds access as the S3 Standard and S3 Standard-IA storage classes. It is designed for rarely accessed data that still needs immediate access in performance-sensitive use cases like medical imaging, news media assets, and usergenerated content. You can upload objects directly to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval or use S3 lifecycle policy to transition data from the S3 storage classes. For more information, please visit Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval.

Key Features:

• Data retrieval in milliseconds with the same performance as S3 Standard
• Designed for 99.999999999% durability for objects in multiple Availability Zones
• Data is recoverable in the event of an Availability Zone event
• Designed for 99.9% data availability over a given year
• Minimum object size of 128 KB
• Supported in terms of availability with the Amazon S3 Service Level Agreement
• S3 PUT API for direct upload to S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval and management with S3 lifecycle for automatic object migration

…Architecture Diagram of Burapha University

S3 Benefits of Amazon S3 for Burapha University

Leveraging the combined capabilities of Amazon S3 Standard and Amazon S3 Glacier Instant Retrieval, Burapha University has successfully implemented a comprehensive cloud-based backup system. This solution enables rapid data recovery within minutes, facilitates long-term data archiving, and aligns optimally with the university's budget constraints.

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