SteelDome Cyber is a global data protection and storage company, offering a wide range of cloud-backed, next-generation cybersecurity technologies and solutions. InfiniVault™, the company’s flagship product for anti-ransomware and data protection, is designed to keep mission-critical data continuously available, accessible, and secure. SteelDome is headquartered in New York, NY.
Despite the ongoing rise in cloud adoption, many IT administrators struggle to successfully manage the costs associated with it. Pricing models and hidden fees vary from provider to provider, making the true cost of cloud difficult to understand and, more importantly, predict. SteelDome Cyber was (and is) all too familiar with these cloud cost headaches.
Enterprise-grade infrastructure
As a data protection provider built for the cloud era, many of the company’s cybersecurity solutions are designed to leverage the security and flexibility of the public cloud. However, this means that in order to guarantee fair and predictable pricing to its customers, SteelDome needed to receive the same guarantee from its own cloud service provider. A feat that, as SteelDome CTO - Jeffrey Slapp can attest, is easier said than done.
SteelDome needed to receive the same guarantee from its own cloud service provider
“What 11:11 Systems was able to offer us is exceedingly unique,” said Jeffrey Slapp, adding “They not only had the solid, enterprise-grade infrastructure we required, but could provide it alongside an outstanding pricing model and a responsive support team. In my experience, finding a combination like that in a cloud service provider is very rare. 11:11 was the perfect fit.”
Anti-ransomware software
Before partnering with 11:11 Systems for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and object storage, SteelDome tried its hand with a few of the large hyperscalers. What Slapp and his team found were cost-related guessing games and rampant uncertainty. Now SteelDome is able to securely and simply host its entire infrastructure on the 11:11 Cloud, including InfiniVault™, its flagship anti-ransomware software.
The change has also allowed SteelDome to maintain a clear and predictable pricing model for its customers. “Before we learned about 11:11, we worked with a number of the large, typical hyperscalers like Google, Azure, and Wasabi. We found their pricing models to be very difficult to understand with a lot of, let’s just just say, fine print in how they determine certain fees,” said Jeffrey Slapp.
Attractive price point opportunity
11:11 allows us to offer our end users a much more attractive price point opportunity"
He adds, “Their models are also completely fluid, always changing. Every month there’s a different cost for a different thing, and customers don’t necessarily like that. They want predictability. That’s how you’re able to budget and project where your business is headed. Working with 11:11, we were able to get everything we needed. There’s no concern over egress or ingress fees. The pricing is static and predictable.”
Tony Franchi, CEO at SteelDome, added this about the benefits of working with 11:11: “From a business perspective, 11:11 allows us to offer our end users a much more attractive price point opportunity. If we were to go with another provider at this point in time, it would definitely be more expensive for our customers.”
Dedicated account managers
Another significant differentiator between 11:11 and its competitors, according to Slapp, was the level of available support and expertise. Unlike some hyperscalers, 11:11 offered proactive and reactive support resources 24x7x365, including dedicated account managers, onboarding documentation, and technical staff ready to answer questions and resolve issues.
It was everything SteelDome needed to securely and confidently stand up its entire infrastructure
It was everything SteelDome needed to securely and confidently stand up its entire infrastructure. “Having now worked closely with many members of the 11:11 team, including CTO Justin Giardina, I can say it’s just an outstanding organisation across the board. The responsiveness, the expertise, the willingness to jump in and help with things that are just well beyond the call of duty — it’s just outstanding,” said Slapp.
Single operational issue
“That support and willingness to work with us, especially as SteelDome is still in that ‘start-up mode,’ has been ultra critical. It’s something we could never get, or expect to get, from those major hyperscalers. It’s just not going to happen.”
SteelDome and 11:11 have now been working together for nearly six months (as of August 2022), during which time the company’s entire infrastructure, from its web servers to support, monitoring, and ticketing systems, was successfully moved to the 11:11 Cloud. It’s the kind of high-stress project with the potential to bring about the occasional sleepless night. However, both Slapp and Franchi rave about the responsiveness and expertise of the 11:11 team, reporting not a single operational issue or outage since the process began.
Classified government documents
As a data protection company, SteelDome lives and breathes this reality
“Simply put: We’re all in with 11:11,” said Franchi. “We just love working with their team, which is something that I think gets lost today. We love innovation, of course, but inclusiveness is also very important. We love being involved. We know that 11:11 has customers that are way, way larger than us. But they don’t treat us any differently. I think that’s something a lot of providers are missing today.”
As the volume of data increases worldwide, so does its value. Just think about all the important information that now lives in virtualised environments: Medical records, financial statements, confidential employee information, classified government documents, pictures of pets, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, as the volume and value of their data continues to grow, so will attempts to steal and/or compromise it. As a data protection company, SteelDome lives and breathes this reality.
Mission-critical data
Founded to secure and protect data against all forms of loss, SteelDome offers customers a wide range of cybersecurity technologies and solutions, many of which are now directly connected to the 11:11 Cloud.
SteelDome offers customers a wide range of cybersecurity technologies and solutions
This begs an important question: What does it take for a data security company to trust another with its mission-critical data? The answer, according to Slapp, is not strictly about innovative technology or particular safety protocols, but people.
“As a security company, we certainly have a vetting process for any organisation we partner with, but the biggest component in this case was trust. We trust the individuals running 11:11, their background, and their expertise,” said Slapp.
Purpose-selected security
“And then once we got a chance to be on the 11:11 platform and experience it — not just hearing about it over the phone, but actually working with it on a daily basis — that really increased our comfort level. We saw a platform with security baked into its architecture, which really complimented what we wanted to do.”
SteelDome also gained access to on-demand reporting and alerting for security and compliance
Just like SteelDome, security is a critical pillar in 11:11’s DNA. As internal and external threats evolve, so too will 11:11’s multilayered approach to data protection. For example, the 11:11 Cloud includes managed, purpose-selected security across all services, which is directly integrated into the 11:11 Cloud Console for ease of use, transparency, and control. Through the management console, SteelDome also gained access to on-demand reporting and alerting for security and compliance.
Major competitive advantage
“At the end of the day, working with 11:11 has really given us a major competitive advantage. There’s a tremendous amount of data out there, and whether customers are coming to us just for data storage or protection against ransomware, 11:11 helps us achieve our mission,” said Slapp.
“Our two technologies fit very, very nicely together, and that’s really the bottom line. Our experience has been outstanding.”
