CIO Bulletin

Best of the rest of the cloud industry: Otava

As businesses evolve, cloud environments continue to get more complicated. Many businesses now use at least two clouds, perhaps a combination of three to four, and some are even introducing edge computing. While multiple cloud environments offer a lot of advantages, they has also proven to be difficult, and will likely only become more difficult as complexity increases. As a result, businesses need companies like Otava to master the management of complex cloud environments.

Otava’s roots date back to 1994 when Online Tech was founded. Originally the company was a dial-up internet company, but it quickly evolved into a data center hosting and colocation services business. Next, the company added Disaster Recovery as a Service and HIPAA compliant-cloud services to become the first 100% HIPAA compliant hosting provider in the US. In 2018, it gained investment partners in Schurz Communications, a private, family-owned broadcast, and telecommunications company in business since 1872. Later that year, the company acquired the global cloud infrastructure assets and clients of Neverfail, which expanded its global footprint and channel partner clientele. Online Tech was rebranded to Otava in 2018 to reflect the company’s evolution and continued growth.

Today Otava serves a wide range of US-headquartered enterprise, SLED, and channel partners across the country with 100% availability and international locations, delivering secure and compliant hybrid private and shared cloud, data protection, security and colocation solutions. The company is focused on providing the expertise, high-touch, consultative approach to make cloud easy for its customers. We interviewed Jim Lubinski, Otava’s VP of cloud engineering and infrastructure to learn more about the company and its dedication towards delivering exceptional client results. Below are some of the excerpts.

Why do organizations pick Otava?

Otava is a market leader in secure and compliant hybrid cloud and colocation services, and is laser-focused on making everything about cloud easy for our clients. This is very compelling for compliant-sensitive mid-sized businesses and providers that are often underserved by their current provider relative to enablement resources and hands-on assistance. They are often challenged with legacy systems, tight budgets, and difficulty in attracting and retaining technology talent. Working with Otava, they have the peace of mind that comes with hands-on support, technology, security and compliance expertise, 100% uptime, and a hosted environment. IT service providers also trust Otava to make cloud easy by delivering the hosted infrastructure that gives them what they need, how they need it. Service Providers can white-label our services so that they can retain full control of their brand and client relationships. We partner with them as an extension of their team to provide the type and level of support that they need.

As an added testament to making cloud easier, Otava is currently offering a low price commitmentto prospective buyers that it will not be beat on price for like environments.

Talk about your cloud and data protection services.

Ranked as a Strong Performer in The Forrester Wave^™ for Hosted Private Cloud report, Otava’s hybrid private and public cloud portfolio is designed to give companies the power to innovate within a secure and compliant environment. Otava is a VMware Cloud Verified^® Partner which assures clients easy access to a full set of interoperable cloud capabilities, plus integration with Otava’s data protection vendors and solutions. Cloud offerings are fully customizable and coupled with exceptional high-touch consultation every step of the way. We offer three levels of our infrastructure – secure shared cloud, reserved resource pooled cloud, and private cloud for mission critical applications and workloads that need guaranteed resources – because we want to give organizations a range of options that are optimized for all types of workloads. Clients also have a choice of either usage-based or contract-based billing to suit their needs.

Otava’s broad data protection portfolio spans disaster recovery, backup and vaulting solutions. For business-critical protection Otava’s Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) on Zerto managed solution offers near zero RTO. DRaaS on VMware is ideal for business-important workloads offering a combination of self-serve snapshot and replication options. Backup solutions include both managed and self-managed cloud backup, cloud connect repositories and MS365 backup. As a Veeam Gold Partner, Otava’s backup technology is best-of-breed and backed by tenured certified experts. Lastly, data vaulting via S3 archive cool storage is both economic and compliant. Because no one should have to choose between data security and availability, our cloud services are supported by integrated services including backup, security and disaster recovery and support full hybridity. All solutions and centers are independently audited and certified compliant for HIPAA, HITRUST, PCI-DSS, SOC 1, 2, 3, and ISO27001, at no additional cost.

Why did Evans Distribution Systems choose Otava’s secure and compliant virtual private cloud hosting platform?

Because we focus on security and compliance Otava has many customers in compliance-sensitive industries such as manufacturing/logistics, healthcare, and finance. Evans Distribution Systems is a great example of a third-party logistics provider that wanted to be proactive about protecting its data and keeping its systems running without disruption through its busiest shipping season and year-round. Our Virtual Private Cloud, Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery services help the company to maximize their internal staff while making sure that their systems are reliable and operating at optimal performance levels. Because Otava’s team of experts provides full management of the solutions, Evans Distribution Systems doesn’t need to worry about potential disruptions to its business and can simply focus on continuing to deliver excellent service to its customers. For businesses like Evans Distribution Systems that operate around the clock in multiple time zones, Otava acts as an extension of their team to ensure availability, efficiency, data protection, and compliance.

How does Otava colocation help businesses safeguard their data?

For businesses and service providers that need colocation services, Otava operates compliant data centers that feature 100% availability, low latency, and global connectivity. Redundancy is paramount with multiple power sources, diverse fiber paths, and diverse top-tier network providers to help support and protect its customers’ mission-critical applications. Otava operates and manages two data centers and partners with others throughout the country to provide businesses with geological diversity that minimizes risk. And with compliance and security baked into every layer of our environment and solutions, customers can put their trust in our HIPAA, PCI, SSAE 16, SOC 1, 2, and 3 audited data centers and remain focused on their core businesses. If added support is required, Otava offers managed services and remote hands to take on deployment, configuration, mounting, wiring, adds, changes and more.

Leader’s Corner

Jim Lubinski is Otava’s vice president of cloud engineering and infrastructure. His technology and executive management career spans more than 30 years and he leads Otava’s Product Management team and the development of the company’s private, hybrid cloud solutions suite, including data protection, security, and colocation, that help enterprises and service providers maximize their success.

Prior to joining Otava, Jim served as a senior executive and advisor for the Technical Excellence Group (TEG-Global) and JEL Technologies where he led IT and business development with an emphasis around financial and banking, cloud, big data/data analytics, and healthcare. Earlier roles with other corporations include COO of Local Cloud9 and Capstone Technology Solutions, SVP of Operations and IT for Western Union, SVP of Mergers and Acquisitions for First Data Corporation, and CIO of Galileo International. Jim is a member of the Michigan-Dearborn School of Management Advisory Board and a member of the Colorado Software and Internet Association. Previously he was named as a Computerworld Top 100 IT Leader. He holds an MBA in Finance from Wayne State University and a Bachelor of Science degree, with distinction in Mathematics, from the University of Michigan.