Oil and Gas Producer Ultra Petroleum in Wyoming Opts for Datrium

Ultra Petroleum Corp., a Wyoming-based oil and gas producer, has selected Datrium, Inc. to combat ransomware and recover from disasters with Datrium DR as a Service.

After several iterations of backup and DR solutions, Ultra Petroleum turned to Datrium for a simplified and cost-efficient approach to DR and backup. Datrium DRaaS is transforming DR for all VMware workloads with its built-in backup, RTO and on-demand model. It delivers cost savings and lowers IT complexity, enabling Ultra Petroleum to reinvest time and money into other business priorities.

As an independent exploration and production company, Ultra Petroleum manages dozens of systems, applications and both IT- and business-specific technologies. Before beginning its search for a new solution, it implemented various alternatives, including a co-location model that was difficult to work with and a managed services model that was inefficient and expensive. By deploying Datrium DRaaS, it is able to make the cloud its DR site at a fraction of the cost of having a second data center. Ultra Petroleum can cut costs without impacting service levels because Datrium DRaaS provides fast failover and failback.

“Our IT is 95% virtualized, making Datrium a superior solution for our environment. Everything we wanted to do was supported and easy to implement,” said Josh Rein, network manager, Ultra Petroleum. “With Datrium, everything rides on VMware and delivers built-in security features like encryption. We were able to deploy Datrium in less than eight hours and it took our IT team just an additional eight hours to learn the ins and outs, run validations and realize on-demand results. Additionally, Datrium is 50% less expensive than our managed services model. We finally found a solution that fits our situation.“

While Ultra Petroleum’s immediate need was a better backup solution, Datrium also provided the company with a path for moving to cloud-native DR. Datrium DRaaS combines backup and DR services to deliver DR orchestration as a SaaS product. It provides Ultra Petroleum with one-click failover and failback between their on-premises data center and an on-demand SDDC on VMware Cloud on AWS.

“Datrium DRaaS will give us on-demand DR for all our VMware workloads,” said Rein. “This eliminates the need for a physical DR site and we’ll only pay for the DR resources we actually use which is an economic no-brainer. With Datrium DRaaS, we can extract ourselves from the managed services model, take back control, and save a lot of money-but we aren’t giving up any freedom of choice in the future.“

With Datrium, Ultra Petroleum has added new capabilities without additional costs. For example, their IT team saved staff time by automating key backup processes and streamlining manual tasks. Datrium DRaaS also enables Ultra Petroleum to restart any workload from S3 after a disaster, delivering protection from threats like natural disasters and ransomware. Because Datrium has the ability to deliver RPOs and RTOs in minutes, the customer improves its IT SLAs, for example beating their existing RTO of 48 hours by nearly 48 hours.

“We see a lot of companies struggle with DR because most solutions are expensive, unreliable and labor-intensive,” said Tim Page, CEO, Datrium. “When you’re under stress during a disaster or ransomware attack, you really need a one-click DR strategy to failover your entire data center instantly and with total confidence. We’re looking forward to working with Ultra Petroleum to help them achieve their DR goals with an economical, reliable and instant DR solution for all their VMware workloads.“

Ultra Petroleum case study