Syscloud

SysCloud Reduces Costs and Increases Performance at Scale for SaaS Data Backups on AWS

SysCloud helps over five million users worldwide protect their software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications from data loss and security threats. To sustain its continued growth, SysCloud needed a scalable cloud backup solution.

SysCloud was already using Amazon Web Services (AWS) to run its cloud backup application, so it chose to enhance the solution’s performance by using Amazon FSx for Lustre, a fully managed service that provides cost-effective, high-performance, scalable storage for compute workloads. By implementing FSx for Lustre and other AWS cloud storage services, the company has reduced customer onboarding times and improved backup speeds significantly.

Syscloud
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“Using AWS Storage services, we can show our customers that our solution can comply with the security and compliance requirements that they are asking us to meet.”

Vikram Srinivasan
Head of cloud operations, SysCloud

Finding a Highly Scalable Storage Solution

Founded in 2013, SysCloud provides an intelligent cloud backup solution supporting users across 32 countries. Its primary customers are digital-native businesses and K–12 educational institutions. Before migrating to AWS in 2014, SysCloud initially provided backup solutions for customers’ on-premises storage systems. “A customer would install our previous product in their data center and perform the backup on their own,” says Vikram Srinivasan, head of cloud operations at SysCloud. “This process made code maintenance difficult and required customers to perform manual updates.” SysCloud then chose to transform its on-premises cloud backup solution into a SaaS offering.
 
SysCloud’s SaaS cloud backup solution was initially built using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS), a simple, scalable, high-performance block-storage service designed for Amazon EC2. After the migration, however, the company began to experience rapid growth. Because SysCloud had already migrated to AWS, the organization was able to identify an innovative way to support its growing data storage needs. In 2018, SysCloud began searching for a higher-throughput, lower-latency solution on AWS, leading it to FSx for Lustre. “Our backup solution on FSx for Lustre operates at 99.99 percent availability,” says Raghavendra Sirsi, chief operations officer at SysCloud. “This solution has helped us deliver a reliable cloud backup service to our customers.”

Scaling Backups Using FSx for Lustre and Amazon S3

After migrating to FSx for Lustre, SysCloud began to use Amazon EC2 Spot Instances, which let developers take advantage of unused Amazon EC2 capacity in the cloud. Instead of planning for Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances in advance, the company can scale its FSx for Lustre usage as needed, reducing its provisioning costs by 30 percent. “We solve a lot of problems by scaling on demand,” says Vikram. “We don’t have to worry about the number of users or data volume. We simply provision the process, and the backups happen seamlessly.” Using FSx for Lustre, SysCloud can scale with ease to support new customers and back up their data rapidly, improving onboarding speeds by 300 percent.
 
SysCloud stores petabytes of data on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), an object storage service that offers industry-leading scalability, data availability, durability, security, and performance. To store historical data, the company uses Amazon S3 Glacier (S3 Glacier), a secure, durable, and low-cost Amazon S3 cloud storage class for data archiving and long-term backup. This solution further optimizes SysCloud’s resources, reducing storage costs by 70 percent. “Using Amazon S3 and S3 Glacier, our solution becomes simple and seamless,” says Babu Chimata, chief technology officer at SysCloud. “We have the ability to access the data that we need, when we need it.”
 
SysCloud uses FSx for Lustre to store data in transit, moving files to S3 Standard, S3 Standard-Infrequent Access (S3 Standard-IA), and S3 Glacier based on certain business rules. As a result, SysCloud can securely retain files for a longer period and help users retrieve their data on demand at a faster speed, improving system performance. When retrieving data from S3 Glacier, SysCloud uses multiple S3 Glacier retrieval options to match its data access requirements, which vary from minutes to hours. For example, if SysCloud needs to retrieve data quickly, it can use Expedited retrievals, which make data available in just a few minutes for all but the largest archives. To make its large request jobs more cost efficient, SysCloud uses Bulk retrievals, the lowest-cost S3 Glacier retrieval option, which can make very large amounts of data available in a few hours. Using S3 Glacier and S3 Glacier retrieval options, SysCloud can reduce its data request costs by up to 15 percent. “Previously, we would upload files from the customer and move them to Amazon S3 immediately,” says Vikram. “But submitting individual requests for each file increased our data request costs. By storing data in transit on FSx for Lustre, we were able to save money. We also improved our backup and restore speeds because we group the same types of files together in transit.”
 
SysCloud also uses AWS CloudTrail, a service that facilitates governance, compliance, operational auditing, and risk auditing of AWS accounts, to meet its clients’ auditing requirements. “Using AWS Storage services, we can show our customers that our solution can comply with the security and compliance requirements that they are asking us to meet,” says Vikram.

Expanding into New Global Markets

By using FSx for Lustre and Amazon S3 to provide a cloud backup SaaS solution for its customers, SysCloud has reduced costs and improved its ability to support data volumes in a scalable, secure, and agile way. In the future, the company plans to expand into new global markets and launch new data backup solutions for its customers’ own AWS accounts. “We look forward to adding new features and opening new regions as we grow,” says Babu. “AWS will continue to be the center of our universe.”

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About SysCloud

SysCloud provides cloud backup, compliance, data loss prevention, and user safety monitoring solutions for digital-native businesses and educational institutions. Founded in 2013, the software company protects over five million users across 32 countries.

Benefits

  • Reduced provisioning costs by 30%
  • Onboards customers 300% faster
  • Encrypts data in transit automatically
  • Operates at 99.99% availability
  • Reduced storage costs by 70%
  • Reduced data request costs by up to 15%

AWS Services Used

Amazon FSx for Lustre

Amazon FSx for Lustre is a fully managed service that provides cost-effective, high-performance, scalable storage for compute workloads.

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Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3)

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) is an object storage service offering industry-leading scalability, data availability, security, and performance.

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Amazon S3 Glacier (S3 Glacier)

Amazon S3 Glacier and S3 Glacier Deep Archive are secure, durable, and extremely low-cost Amazon S3 cloud storage classes for data archiving and long-term backup.

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Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud.

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