DaaS: The other view of the CrowdStrike event
Pick up any newspaper and you will see headline after headline detailing how one single software update caused one of the biggest IT incidents in recent history. As story after story recounts the hours spent recovering, the associated costs, and the business implications, I am reminded why desktop as a service (DaaS) is built for this.
The event
On the morning of Friday, July 19, I woke up early to monitor the Microsoft Azure status page. The previous night, I had been monitoring a different potential outage. Instead, I saw news of a major disruption caused by CrowdStrike’s update to its Falcon endpoint protection platform. This widespread issue had significant repercussions across various industries, but for Nerdio and our customers, the story was different.
Rapid action and preparedness
While we do not use CrowdStrike’s solutions, we anticipated the impact this outage would have on our customers and partners, and we took proactive measures. The Nerdio team promptly established a “war room” to address IT requests from our customers. Additionally, we quickly developed a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to assist our customers in reconfiguring their systems.
The power of DaaS in crisis management
Unlike organizations dependent on physical devices, Nerdio customers were able to restore virtual machines to their previous states with remarkable speed and ease thanks to the inherent strength of desktop as a service (DaaS) in crisis and disaster recovery scenarios. The entire process took mere minutes, contrasting sharply with the stories flooding the news of the laborious, manual recovery procedures other companies were experiencing.
But our customers’ feedback says it all. One client shared, “We were affected by the CrowdStrike outage, but we just followed the process within Nerdio to rebuild all of our machines and get them back to a solid, functional configuration, and that worked fine.”
One of our customers reported that Nerdio’s Azure Capacity Extender feature was a huge help during the outage, and their team was able to keep systems operational without any downtime. Additionally, another customer recovered from the incident in just two hours, rapidly adding hundreds of Azure Virtual Desktop users back online.
These customer experiences underscore the practical benefits of our DaaS approach, particularly in times of widespread IT disruptions.
Why Nerdio stands out
The incident serves to showcase several key advantages of Nerdio’s solutions:
Rapid recovery: Virtual machines can be quickly restored to a pre-disruption state, minimizing downtime and ensuring business continuity.
Centralized management: Easy, centralized IT resource management simplifies recovery processes.
Enhanced support: Proactive support and comprehensive guides ensure that clients can navigate crises with confidence.
A smoother path to recovery
While many organizations grappled with extensive downtime and complex recovery processes during the recent outage, Nerdio’s clients enjoyed a smooth and expedited return to normalcy.
At Nerdio, we remain committed to delivering top-notch support and innovative solutions to ensure our clients are always prepared for the unexpected. The advantages of DaaS are clear, and as we continue to enhance our offerings, we stand by our mission to provide unparalleled IT experiences, even in the face of crises.
Read how Nerdio customers use disaster recovery features to maintain business continuity.
