AWS re:Invent 2025 - Beyond Backup: Advancing Cloud Resiliency with Shared Responsibility (SEC205)

AWS re:Invent 2025 - Beyond Backup: Advancing Cloud Resiliency with Shared Responsibility (SEC205)

Challenges with Native Cloud Backup Solutions

• Native backup options from cloud providers like AWS only provide basic protection capabilities
• Limitations around security, data sovereignty, and compliance requirements
• Need for more advanced features like clean room recovery, forensic analysis, and flexible replication

Industry Perspective on Shared Responsibility

• Even when data is in the cloud, the customer is responsible for protecting and recovering their data
• Shared responsibility model means enterprises must take an active role in securing and managing their cloud data
• Outgrowing basic backup solutions due to evolving threats, unpredictable cyber attacks, and increasing compliance needs

Customer Insights from Pearl River Community College

• Small IT team responsible for securing and recovering diverse workloads and sensitive student data
• Experienced a devastating ransomware attack that wiped out on-premises backups
• Realized the need for a comprehensive cloud-based backup and recovery solution with advanced security features

Enhancing Cyber Resilience with Cohesity

• Integrated Cohesity with Cisco XDR to detect anomalies and automatically take snapshots for forensic analysis
• Implemented quarterly testing and tabletop exercises to validate disaster recovery procedures
• Leveraged Cohesity's cloud vaulting capabilities to establish an immutable, air-gapped backup in AWS

Key Outcomes and Future Priorities

• Achieved a robust, tested disaster recovery plan with the ability to recover 17TB of data in 17 hours
• Expanded Cohesity usage to 6 out of 15 Mississippi community colleges, sharing best practices
• Future priorities include further hardening backups, expanding end-user training, and exploring hot site capabilities

Cohesity's Flexible Cloud Data Protection

• Protect data across on-premises, edge, and multi-cloud environments from a single management interface
• Leverage Cohesity's cloud vaulting solution with features like quorum-based approvals and immutable data locks
• Seamlessly protect AWS workloads like EC2, RDS, S3, and more with a unified data protection strategy

Conclusion

• Shared responsibility for data protection is critical, even in the cloud
• Comprehensive, tested cyber resilience plans are essential to recover from modern threats like ransomware
• Cohesity's flexible cloud data protection solutions can help enterprises of all sizes enhance their cloud resiliency