7 Minute Security Takes Security Training to the Next Level

For a small business, a long-term cloud services contract is not only a substantial investment but also a significant financial risk. OVHcloud helped 7 Minute Security manage that financial risk with cloud services on a month-to-month basis instead of locking them into a long-term commitment.

Highlights

• VMware on OVHcloud Hosted Private Cloud
• Intuitive disaster recovery powered by Zerto
• Fast and seamless cloud deployment
• No vendor lock-in
• Exceptional support services

Client

7 Minute Security is a Minneapolis-based information security consulting firm that helps train companies ranging from Fortune 100 corporations to small and medium-sized businesses to conduct security assessments, vulnerability scanning, and penetration testing.

Challenges

Their flagship training product, a security test lab, was initially located on Azure; however, that cloud platform was a poor fit for their needs. "Azure was quite pricey and it required blood, sweat, and tears to learn their environment,” said Brian Johnson, president of 7 Minute Security. After each class, where students performed IT penetration testing and hacking, restoring the lab to its original condition for the next session was not a simple or straightforward process. Once each class was over, Brian wanted the ability to press a single button and rewind the test lab back to its original condition, where it was vulnerable and filled with security issues for the class to work through. "Unfortunately, the Azure platform necessitated a tedious multi-step process with many opportunities for human error," said Brian. It forced him to restore each virtual machine (VM) individually, which took 30-40 minutes per VM. Ultimately 7 Minute Security needed hours to get that cloud environment back to a class-ready state.

Not only was the Azure platform expensive and challenging to navigate, but they also charged 7 Minute Security for the run time of VMs. It required Brian to be conscious of the operating state of VMs, powering them up immediately before each class and powering them down right after. Unfortunately, there once was an incident where Brian had forgotten to power off the VMs in his Azure environment before leaving for vacation. Upon his return, 7 Minute Security had a nightmare of a bill for the VM run time.

Solutions Delivered

To overcome these challenges, Brian chose VMware on OVHcloud Hosted Private Cloud, which offers simplified and transparent pricing with no hidden fees. 7 Minute Security is no longer burdened with fees for the time when VMs are running. In fact, 7 Minute Security can leave their VMs running 24/7 without incurring additional charges.

Furthermore, 7 Minute Security can now restore their security test lab quickly and easily. VMware on OVHcloud enables Brian to hit the restore button to get his environment back in its class-ready state in under 30 seconds. "Everything is golden with OVHcloud," said Brian. "I just click restore and my environment is ready for the next class. It's awesome!"

Additionally, Brian's familiarity with VMware would help get things rolling much faster than the learning curve of Azure's unfamiliar environment, describing VMware on OVHcloud as “vSphere in the cloud”. OVHcloud's customer support team also helped Brian with information about pfSense, an open-source firewall software. He acknowledged this firewall was not a part of OVHcloud's scope of work, but he needed help and the OVHcloud support team delivered.

Results, ROI, and Future Plans

For a small business, a long-term cloud services contract is not only a substantial investment but also a significant financial risk. OVHcloud helped 7 Minute Security manage that financial risk with cloud services on a month-to-month basis instead of locking them into a long-term commitment. If 7 Minute Security needs to pause the test lab for a few months, OVHcloud's pricing structure enables them to do so without uncertainty or financial penalty. Additionally, OVHcloud provided a cloud platform that's easy for 7 Minute Security to use and mitigates the risk of unexpected charges related to the runtime of VMs.

7 Minute Security received feedback from students that they would like another course on the defensive side of security to make their virtual environments more resilient to attacks. Knowing how fast and easy it is to host classes in the OVHcloud environment, 7 Minute Security plans to add more security test labs. Brian said he would "100% stay in the OVHcloud world to offer these new defensive classes."

Quotes

It’s been years since I have had to install or manage vCenter from scratch, so it was great that OVHcloud had guardrails and preconfigurations to help get my environment up and running quickly. I saved a lot of time with their plug and play solutions. - Brian Johnson, President of 7 Minute Security

I spun up a pricey lab in Azure, but after a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get it set up, I found out that it was not the right fit for my needs... Now, everything is golden with OVHcloud. I just click restore and my environment is ready to go in 25 seconds. It’s awesome. - Brian Johnson, President of 7 Minute Security