Enhancing Cloud Platform for Hyperconverged Data Protection
Company profile
Industry
Data Protection
Niche
Hyperconverged Infrastructure
Company Size
50-100
HQ
Timisoara, Romania
Services provided:
The company provides hyperconverged infrastructure solutions that simplify data protection for small and medium-sized businesses, mainly throughout Italy as well as other European countries. Their focus is providing affordable and value-driven solutions for small companies looking to have enterprise-grade data protection without the complexity and high costs typically associated with traditional solutions.
Their cloud management platform enables IT administrators to manage storage, backup, disaster recovery, and virtualization from a unified interface as well as provide with reporting and VPN capabilities.
Challenge
The cloud platform and device operating system needed significant functional enhancements to better serve IT administrators managing complex hyperconverged infrastructure. Users required clearer visibility into system health, streamlined workflows for common tasks, and improved data protection monitoring capabilities. In addition to this, the company was looking to capitalize on the pandemic boom of remote working, which created with itself challenges with scaling as well as opportunities for growth.
Mainly the company was looking to enhance its os capabilities with failover and fail back functionality, as well as expanding on the cloud management potential it had with its Central platform.
Complex domain and architecture
Made it difficult for IT administrators in small to medium sized companies to effectively deal with disaster recovery and scaling up for remote-first work
Fragmented workflows
Requiring multiple steps to complete common administrative tasks, leading to inefficiencies and user frustration
Limited visibility
Into backup status, storage utilization, and disaster recovery readiness, making it challenging for administrators to proactively manage data protection
Incoherent visual language
That caused increased workload for both developers and the product. Patches and quick fixes that plagued cloud and OS remained unaddressed over the time the company grew.
Solution
Cloud systems overhaul
Restructured the main dashboard to prioritize critical system metrics and alerts. Created a hierarchical information architecture that surfaces the most important data at a glance while maintaining quick access to detailed views.
Operating system upgrade and redesign
Streamlined common administrative tasks by reducing multi-step processes into guided workflows. Implemented contextual actions and shortcuts that adapt to the user's current task, significantly reducing time-to-completion.
Enhanced Monitoring Views
Designed comprehensive monitoring interfaces for backup status, storage utilization, and disaster recovery readiness. Introduced visual indicators and predictive alerts that help administrators stay ahead of potential issues.
Unified Design system
Established a consistent visual system across all platform modules, creating reusable components and interaction patterns. This reduced cognitive load and made the platform feel more cohesive and professional.
Assets and artefacts
Ideation board
Dissecting and redesigning the features was in equal parts a work of investigation and research of competitor's features and functionality present in similarly placed products
A modal depicting locally running virtual machines, listing their availability to be moved
Email report samples that were designed to be sent out periodically, with information about the status of the os, and the virtual machines running on it.
Platform Information Architecture
Maps for the cloud service enhancement, complete with information architecture. Cloud licensing impact on operations and services
Various screens
Sample of the physical device's operating system data protection service
Example of the details of a running Virtual Machine deployed locally on the second generation of the physical devices operating system
Advanced task management examples and views
Key User Workflows
Optimized workflows for backup configuration, disaster recovery setup, and system monitoring
Results
50%
Faster task completion
Streamlined workflows reduced time spent on common administrative tasks
Improved
System visibility
Enhanced dashboard provided clearer insights into infrastructure health and performance