Build Group Chooses Druva For Ransomware Recovery Features and Advances Data Protection

Build Group is a San Francisco-based general contractor with over 500 employees located across California. Their projects range from residential structures to commercial buildings. They are early adopters of innovative technology in all phases of construction from pre-construction to closeout and believe technology is key to problem-solving in the industry.

Build Group’s previous backup system was a physical on-premises system in a storage closet. This included on-site hardware for dedicated backup servers in every office and multiple storage devices. Adam Kailian, Build Group’s IT manager, described how maintaining and running the system was time-consuming and costly. “I spent a lot of time just checking in… and trying to keep everything running,” Kailian said.

Build Group’s projects require strategic planning involving voluminous CAD files, Microsoft files, and SQL databases. Immediate access to this data is critical for day-to-day construction activities. Not to mention, the data is subject to strict record-retention policies, with some content needing to be saved for up to ten years.

Ransomware is a major concern for the IT team and senior leadership. Kailian shared, “As an IT leader, my biggest concern is definitely ransomware. We’re constantly hearing about how attacks impact organizations far beyond their IT environment.” By not keeping a copy of their data in a separate, offsite location, the team risked losing their data if a ransomware attack occurred.

Build Group’s Salesforce data contains very sensitive forecasting and accounting information. In addition to security concerns, the team also wanted a more cost-effective alternative to Salesforce’s restore services, which would be as much as $10,000 per restore. The Build Group team needed to find a platform solution to cover the multiple data protection and security challenges they were facing.

After some in-house research, Build Group decided to go with Druva as their SaaS backup solution. “Druva really stood out to us, both in ease of use and the features,” says Kailian. With Druva, Build Group seamlessly moved from on-site backup to cloud-based backup and recovery. Their experience has been positive, and since their initial purchase they have expanded the use of Druva several times through their partner, Dasher Technologies.

Build Group originally began using Druva in 2015 to protect end-user devices. Not long after, they switched to Druva for file and Microsoft SQL workloads. Later, they added cloud disaster recovery functionality for fast, one-click failover of VMs into their Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment. Most recently, they adopted Druva’s Accelerated Ransomware Recovery Solution to improve their readiness and ability to quickly recover from ransomware and prevent data loss.

Build Group was also an early adopter of Druva’s Salesforce backup solution to secure all of its critical data. Backing up and restoring Salesforce data with Druva eliminates costs and eases worries about ransomware attacks. Kailian says, “It's just peace of mind for us having Salesforce data backed up through Druva — if there are ever any issues, we can restore quickly and easily, without any added costs.”

Druva’s ransomware protection has led to significant cost savings for Build Group. Backing up critical Salesforce data has eliminated the costs associated with each restore. They also have reduced their cyber liability insurance premium because they are protected by Druva. According to Kailian, “Being able to maintain that insurance at a lower premium has delivered big savings for us.” Eliminating on-site servers also helped the team cut costs.

Another benefit of using Druva is its scalability. Previously, Build Group relied on on-site physical storage through NAS (network-attached storage) devices that were building up and required a great deal of maintenance. Moving to cloud-based scalability gave the IT team more time to focus on other efforts.

“We don't have to spend as much time checking on our backups and worrying about that,” Kailian said. Now if there are issues with the backups, the team receives email alerts. Otherwise, they are confident everything is running smoothly — including their Salesforce environment.

“And also, from our executive’s perspective, Salesforce contains a lot of budgeting and forecasting data. Having the Druva Data Resiliency Cloud in our tech stack gives our senior leadership and myself peace of mind knowing that we can restore it simply and easily as needed,” Kailian added.