Partner Success with AWS / Travel & Hospitality / United States
Sunstone Hotel Investors Facilitates Business Continuity with AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery
With the help of AWS Partner RedNight Consulting, Sunstone Hotel Investors modernized its operations by migrating to AWS and crafting a robust disaster recovery plan.
Reduces
hardware costs
Facilitates
business continuity
Prevents
data loss
Supports
business growth
Overview
Supported by AWS Partner RedNight Consulting, Sunstone Hotel Investors modernized its operations by migrating to Amazon Web Services (AWS) and crafting a disaster recovery plan. With a portfolio of 14 hotels, the hotel investment group faced challenges with its outdated data center infrastructure, leading to inefficiencies and scalability issues. Sunstone Hotel Investors worked with RedNight Consulting to migrate 15 servers to the cloud and implement AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery to facilitate business continuity. The company can now operate more efficiently and adapt swiftly to changing business needs while protecting against data loss.
Transforming Investment Operations with Modern Technology
Managing a hotel involves detailed revenue management, strategic marketing, and consistent service improvement. Add multiple properties to the mix, and operations become much more complex. Companies that invest in hotel properties need modern technology to handle these challenges while maintaining high-quality service. To enhance its operational efficiency, Sunstone Hotel Investors decided to modernize.
The investment group wanted help migrating to AWS and implementing a disaster recovery plan to protect its data. So it turned to AWS Advanced Partner RedNight Consulting, which specializes in cloud-based solutions and disaster recovery planning. Together, the companies developed a comprehensive strategy for migrating and securing the IT infrastructure of Sunstone Hotel Investors.
Using AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery, I know that the system will work the second I turn it on.”
Mike Toggenburger
IT Director, Sunstone Hotel Investors
Overcoming Scaling and Cost Challenges by Migrating to the Cloud
Based in Aliso Viejo, California, Sunstone Hotel Investors manages a portfolio of 14 hotels across the United States, including the well-known Marriott and Hilton properties. Previously, the company hosted its infrastructure in a primary data center, where it ran its applications on servers that were kept in a cage along with other hardware from various corporations. This setup restricted the company’s ability to efficiently scale operations and adapt to changing business needs. Sunstone Hotel Investors was also paying for the space, internet, and hardware to operate its infrastructure, which was expensive.
As the renewal of its hardware approached, Sunstone Hotel Investors had an important decision to make: whether to continue buying services from the data center or to modernize by migrating to the cloud. Through its ongoing relationship with the company, RedNight Consulting was invited to explore a refresh of the production data center and suggested migrating to AWS.
“I told RedNight Consulting that we didn’t know AWS very well, so we wanted help,” says Mike Toggenburger, IT director at Sunstone Hotel Investors. “The team did a great job. It handled everything that it said it would.”
First, RedNight Consulting thoroughly evaluated the existing server and network setup to understand its current performance. Then, it developed a proof of concept, which involved creating a demonstration environment on AWS to mirror the entire server and networking infrastructure. This helped demonstrate to Sunstone Hotel Investors that AWS could meet its requirements for remote access and data-transfer speeds.
The company realized that migrating its entire infrastructure to AWS was not only feasible but also advantageous. Consequently, Sunstone Hotel Investors decided to proceed with a full-scale migration of its production environment to AWS.
Implementing AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery for Business Continuity
From October to December 2022, Sunstone Hotel Investors and RedNight Consulting migrated 15 servers and main network and communications system from the on-premises data center to AWS. This involved transferring all the company’s data, business analysis tools, and key accounting and enterprise-resource-planning software. RedNight Consulting also encouraged Sunstone Hotel Investors to adopt Amazon WorkSpaces—which are fully managed, secure, reliable virtual desktop solutions—to facilitate remote access.
As the migration progressed, Sunstone Hotel Investors realized that it had never properly used disaster recovery plans and systems. Disaster recovery is crucial for business continuity, helping to protect against data loss if the system goes down. As a public company, Sunstone Hotel Investors needed reliable systems with advanced security features, especially for its accounting software and remote access capabilities.
After the migration, Sunstone Hotel Investors adopted AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (AWS DRS), which minimizes downtime and data loss with fast, reliable recovery of on-premises and cloud-based applications. To facilitate this, the company runs this service using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances, which provide secure and resizable compute capacity for virtually any workload.
Each Amazon EC2 instance runs the AWS DRS agent for replication, actively mirroring changes from the live servers to a backup location across the country. This backup hub maintains up to 7 days of versioned snapshots of the servers, facilitating immediate disaster recovery activation. Using AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery—along with the security features built in AWS services—Sunstone Hotel Investors can access data consistently and prevent operational disruptions.
“We are much more comfortable with the level of security that we have using Amazon WorkSpaces compared with other environments we’ve been in, which were mainly onsite data centers,” says Toggenburger.
By migrating to AWS and avoiding the need for hardware and software refreshes in its data center, the company saved around $250,000 up front, plus $5,000 dollars monthly. The company feels confident knowing that it has implemented robust disaster recovery capabilities while saving resources.
Sunstone Hotel Investors has reinvested the time and resources saved from migrating to AWS to develop a business intelligence dashboard for near real-time data access. The system has enhanced its core competency in data management and reporting, facilitating data-driven decision-making. This positions the company for fast growth compared to competitors.
Embracing Cloud Services for Long-Term Business Growth
By migrating to AWS and implementing a strong disaster recovery plan, Sunstone Hotel Investors protects its data well in the cloud. With the help of RedNight Consulting, the company was able to benefit from this technology, ultimately creating a more efficient and cost-effective business model. As it moves forward, it will continue to engage RedNight Consulting to further modernize its infrastructure. “Using AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery, I know that the system will work the second I turn it on,” says Toggenburger.
About Sunstone Hotel Investor
Based in Aliso Viejo, California, Sunstone Hotel Investors manages a portfolio of 14 hotels across the United States.
About AWS Partner RedNight Consulting
RedNight Consulting is a managed IT service provider that helps clients plan, conduct, and optimize migrations to the cloud. Founded in 2015, it is an AWS Advanced Partner and Authorized Commercial Reseller.
AWS Services Used
AWS DRS
AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (AWS DRS) minimizes downtime and data loss with fast, reliable recovery of on-premises and cloud-based applications using affordable storage, minimal compute, and point-in-time recovery.
Amazon EC2
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) offers the broadest and deepest compute platform, with over 750 instances and choice of the latest processor, storage, networking, operating system, and purchase model to help you best match the needs of your workload
Learn more »
Amazon WorkSpaces Family
Fully managed, secure, reliable virtual desktop solutions for every workload
Learn more »
Get Started
Organizations of all sizes across all industries are transforming their businesses and delivering on their missions every day using AWS. Contact our experts and start your own AWS journey today.