This is a real case study from one of our clients.
When a major hurricane made landfall in the southeastern United States, roads became impassable. Power was out across the region. Most businesses shut down for weeks.
But at one of our clients — a 35-person custom manufacturing company that serves businesses across the country — something different happened.
Employees who had evacuated — some to hotel rooms hundreds of miles away, others to relatives' houses — simply opened their laptops and kept working. Orders came in. Invoices went out. Customers never knew the difference.
That business continuity wasn't luck. It was the result of a technology transformation we had completed years earlier.
The problem: servers in a disaster-prone region
For years, our client operated like most small businesses: with servers humming in a back room, hosting everything from their CRM to their inventory system to their financial data. It worked well enough — until storm season.
Every year brought the same anxious ritual: as storms approached, the leadership team would make backup copies of critical databases and applications, physically taking them when they evacuated. If the building flooded or collapsed, at least they'd have the data.
It was a reasonable precaution, but it highlighted a deeper vulnerability. With daily sales averaging nearly $58,000, even a few days of downtime meant serious revenue loss. And in a major storm, "a few days" could easily become a few weeks.
The business reality: $58,000 in daily sales meant every day of downtime was catastrophic. Storm season wasn't just an inconvenience — it was an existential risk.
The solution: moving 98% to the cloud
The transformation began with a fundamental shift: moving 98% of the company's infrastructure to Amazon Web Services. This wasn't a simple lift-and-shift. It was a complete reimagining of how the business operates.
What we migrated
Every critical system moved to the cloud:
- Databases — customer records, order history, product catalogs
- Applications — CRM, inventory management, order processing
- Storage — documents, files, backups
- Phone system — VoIP moved to cloud-based solution
- Employee desktops — transitioned to AWS WorkSpaces
AWS WorkSpaces: the game-changer
The most impactful change was moving employee desktops to AWS WorkSpaces. This gave staff virtual desktops they could access from anywhere with an internet connection.
Whether employees were in the office, at home, or evacuating ahead of a storm, they'd have:
- The same familiar desktop environment
- The same applications
- The same data
- The same phone system
The physical location of the employee became irrelevant to their ability to work.
The server room becomes irrelevant
The server room that once required constant attention and annual storm anxiety became obsolete. All that data now lived in secure, redundant AWS data centers — far from any disaster's path.
No more:
- Physical backup drives during evacuations
- Hoping the building survived the storm
- Days or weeks of recovery time after a disaster
- IT staff risking their safety to maintain systems
The storm test
The major hurricane provided the ultimate stress test. When the Category 1 storm made landfall, it dropped over 30 inches of rain. The entire area was completely isolated — every road in and out was flooded or blocked.
The area effectively shut down. Businesses that depended on local infrastructure went dark.
But our client? Their systems never went down. Their data was safe in AWS.
What happened during the storm
Employees who had evacuated before the storm simply logged into their AWS WorkSpaces from wherever they'd landed:
- Hotel rooms in distant cities
- Relatives' houses in other states
- Anywhere with an internet connection
Orders continued processing. Customer inquiries got answered. Invoices went out on schedule.
There was some disruption — you can't completely eliminate the impact of a major disaster on a local workforce. But the difference between "some disruption" and "weeks of total shutdown" represents hundreds of thousands of dollars in preserved revenue.
The real test of disaster recovery isn't a simulation — it's an actual disaster. This hurricane proved that the cloud migration wasn't just theoretical protection. It worked exactly as designed when it mattered most.
The investment and return
Cloud migration investment: Moving 98% of infrastructure to AWS
Return on investment:
- Business continuity — operations continued through a major hurricane
- Preserved revenue — no weeks-long shutdown during peak season
- Reduced IT burden — no more physical server maintenance
- Future flexibility — foundation for remote work (which proved essential during COVID)
- Scalability — infrastructure that grows with the business
The ROI on the cloud migration was proven the first time a storm threatened. Every hurricane season since has been one less thing to worry about.
Lessons learned
Start before you need it
The cloud migration happened years before the hurricane. By the time the storm hit, the new systems were well-established and the team was comfortable using them. Trying to migrate during a crisis would have been impossible.
Virtual desktops change everything
AWS WorkSpaces was the single most impactful change. It decoupled employee productivity from physical location entirely. This proved valuable not just for storms, but for everyday flexibility — and later, for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Redundancy is worth the cost
Cloud infrastructure isn't free. But the cost of redundancy is trivial compared to the cost of a weeks-long business shutdown. The math isn't even close.
Test before you need to
We tested the disaster recovery setup before any actual disaster. Employees practiced working remotely. Systems were verified. When the real test came, everyone knew what to do.
Is your business disaster-proof?
If your business depends on physical infrastructure in a disaster-prone area, you're carrying risk that doesn't need to exist. Cloud migration isn't just about modernization — it's about resilience.
The technology exists. The approach is proven. The only question is whether you make the investment before you need it, or after you wish you had.
We'd be happy to discuss what cloud migration might look like for your specific situation.
Entvas Editorial Team
Helping businesses make informed decisions
