API Protects 31 TB of Critical Azure and Microsoft 365 Data with AvePoint

The American Petroleum Institute (API) represents the U.S. natural gas and oil industry, supporting over 11 million jobs and nearly 600 member companies. Founded in 1919, API’s mission is to promote safety and influence public policy to ensure a strong, viable industry. API’s scope includes developing over 800 standards for operational and environmental safety, conducting research, and providing certification programs. Their work extends internationally, recognized for fostering new technologies and transparent reporting through initiatives like API Energy Excellence.

• Comprehensive backup and restore solution across Azure and Microsoft 365 data 
• Swift, granular restores of data and systems to minimize downtime 
• Point-in-time recovery of critical files
• Pain-free deployment 

API relied on Backupify for their data protection, but with their contract nearing its end, they knew they had to make a change. Backupify could not back up their entire Microsoft 365, Azure, Power Platform and Entra ID environments and lacked granular recovery for critical data. According to Rodney Sampson, API’s Vice President and Chief Information Officer, “Having a robust backup and recovery is fundamental today. We didn’t want to worry about disruptions caused by a cyber-attack, data breach or loss of access to critical data.” 

In fact, that worry was realized when using Backupify — and not by a malicious cyber-attack but rather, when a team member’s name was changed in Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory). As a result, she lost access to all files created under her original name, which caused serious work disruptions to her work and her team. She had no way to easily recover her files, and the team struggled to do so in its entirety given how incomplete their previous provider was.

At the same time, a managed service provider (MSP) that API was using identified OneDrive files that were being over shared after her name was changed. Because the MSP was using AvePoint Insights, API started looking into AvePoint and noticed that the Confidence Platform included comprehensive data protection and management solutions — so they could solve multiple problems with one vendor.

The decision became even more pressing when Rodney had another data protection incident where a colleague outside of their IT team conducted a data cleanup without a prior backup, leading to unintended data loss. Ultimately, these incidents revealed gaps, and on top of that, the organization realized that they needed to resolve their policy for when an employee resigns. Critically, API needed to ensure that they could backup all the important files stored on employee devices and in the cloud before they were fully offboarded so that these could be properly endorsed to their managers. Having the capability to roll back to a desired point in time was also an essential requirement.

API exercised due diligence to determine if AvePoint could address their challenges, which initially included understanding what security certifications and protocols AvePoint had in place. Rodney explains, “Your solutions provider should be secure and resilient on their own before you consider getting them to address your data needs.”

Then, the API IT team worked together with AvePoint to perform test backups and restores with Cloud Backup to see the solution in action. Rodney recalls, “AvePoint provided the training needed to help us succeed. They showed us how granular the recovery truly is so we could compare how Cloud Backup was versus what we had before. We wanted to replace like for better and working with AvePoint showed us just that.”

The multi-platform capabilities of AvePoint Cloud Backup enhanced API’s efficiency, streamlining the backup and restore management for 31 TB of data across Microsoft 365, Azure, Power Platform and Entra ID. Since implementing Cloud Backup, they experienced a data loss incident where non-IT personnel accidentally deleted highly sensitive files, but with AvePoint, they could swiftly recover lost data within a day.  

Rodney remarks that their experience with AvePoint is a result of having chosen wisely and adds: “It has been a smooth journey so far. To this day, the product stays true to its claims.”

To companies facing similar challenges with data backup and recovery needs for multiple platforms, Rodney shares this piece of advice, “People need to find partners, like AvePoint, that have been tried and tested in the data backup and security space. Some providers claim they can do all sorts of things but haven’t really done them long enough to make such claims.” He adds that AvePoint capabilities and track-record gave him a high degree of confidence, unlike other vendors whose, “core functionalities of data security were an afterthought.” 

To support API’s vision of establishing a strong data governance framework, they recently deployed AvePoint Policies to enforce controls on Microsoft 365 sharing permissions, membership, and configuration to secure their digital workplace, concurrent to deploying AvePoint Insights to easily find, prioritize, and fix Microsoft 365 permissions, membership, and sharing. After having such success with AvePoint Cloud Backup, Rodney and his team look forward to more positive results and a stronger data security and governance posture in the future.