Protecting vital HR data for government employees

Overview

Challenge

• Deliver secure, highly available storage to enable the management of hundreds of thousands of HR records for public-sector employees.

Solution

• Resilient block and file solutions based on Hitachi Content Platform, Hitachi VSP One Block, and Hitachi VSP One File.

Outcome

• Storage encryption and real-time data replication help ensure that mission-critical data entrusted to the organization is secure and available at all times.

Challenge

This government organization in a European country plays a key role in delivering IT services for the management of human resources (HR) for a significant portion of the civil service. In addition to managing hundreds of thousands of personnel records for civil servants on a day-to-day basis, the organization maintains vital digital infrastructure that helps enable timely tax declarations for up to two million employees every month.

A spokesperson for the organization says: “Our top priorities are the security of the data entrusted to us and the availability of our platform. The user base for our platform for digital HR services is going to grow significantly, and it’s crucial to have a robust and secure storage platform to help accommodate that growth.”

For more than a decade, the public-sector organization has relied on Hitachi Vantara solutions to store, protect and secure the data that its mission-critical HR platform depends on.

“We pride ourselves on following best practices for information security and data governance, not just meeting the basic legal requirements,” explains the spokesperson. “For example, we have put rigorous GDPR controls in place and achieved ISO 27001:2022 and ISO 27701 certifications across our entire environment. Our Hitachi Vantara storage platform plays a key role in strengthening our overall approach to protecting the data entrusted to us.”

Today, the organization uses Hitachi Content Platform (HCP), Hitachi VSP One Block for Mid-sized Enterprises and Hitachi VSP One File to manage personnel records and selected payroll data for government employees. The performance and availability of these systems is critical to support the digital HR workflows of numerous functionaries in the government HR/payroll domain.

“Practically all our storage solutions are Hitachi solutions; we’ve built a strong and trusted partnership over many years,” says the spokesperson. “So, when our existing HCP environment neared end-of-life, upgrading was an easy decision.”

Solution

During the move to the new HCP solution, the organization took the opportunity to encrypt its storage pools. In the event of theft of physical equipment, only authorized individuals with an encryption key would be able to decode the information.

“We believe in a defense-in-depth approach to cyber security,” confirms the spokesperson. “Data encryption adds an extra layer of protection for us, and for the government agencies that put their trust in us.”

Working with experts from Hitachi Vantara, the organization completed its HCP upgrade smoothly and without disruption to production operations.

“The upgrade was straightforward,” says the spokesperson. “We simply paused our old storage nodes, connected the new ones and migrated the data. Staying with HCP enabled us to avoid the cost and risk of migrating all our data to a new platform.”

The spokesperson adds: “Hitachi Vantara has world-class experts who know not only their solutions but also our IT environment and constraints, which makes technical conversations much easier and more productive.”

Recently, the organization ran a proof of concept for implementing virtualization solutions based on Red Hat OpenStack and OpenShift Virtualization, working closely with a Hitachi Vantara engineer. “Whenever we had a question, they were always ready to help, and their expertise contributed to the success of these two POCs. Our teams were also able to capitalize on the experience gained,” says the spokesperson.

Outcome

The public-sector organization remains deeply satisfied with Hitachi Vantara and views the company as a strategic partner.

“From a support perspective, Hitachi Vantara has been faultless,” says the spokesperson. “We know whom to contact if we have an urgent issue. We were able to put Hitachi Vantara support to the test in real conditions a few years back, and the incident was resolved in record time. Our ongoing relationship with the technical and commercial teams at Hitachi Vantara enables them to share advances in the Hitachi Vantara portfolio and to keep us up to date with the latest announcements.”

One of the key benefits of working with Hitachi Vantara is improved confidence: the organization knows that its data is more secure and its systems are resilient. By configuring real-time replication between two geographically separated HCP arrays, the organization is able to minimize the risk of losing critical HR documentation in the event of an issue with its production site. Nevertheless, the public-sector organization remains particularly vigilant regarding the various cybersecurity risks it faces.

“Another government agency recently had their storage arrays crash, and it took weeks for them to get back up and running again,” says the spokesperson. “Our Hitachi storage environment means we’re well-protected against that kind of major incident. Even if our main site went down, our documents would still be available at our backup site.”

Crucially for a public-sector organization, Hitachi Vantara offers performant and resilient storage within a highly competitive commercial framework.

“With Hitachi Vantara, we have hardware and support that we can depend on at a competitive price point,” concludes the spokesperson. “We know that our services depend on the quality of technology provided by our suppliers, which is why we favor an approach based on partnership rather than a simple client-supplier relationship. We appreciate the close relationship we have with the Hitachi teams.”