Zscaler runs the world’s largest cloud security platform, and the company’s cloud operations team is charged with ensuring the platform is resilient in the face of any natural or manmade disaster or other unplanned emergencies. In the past 30 days, we have brought online or expanded more than six locations, including two in the U.S., two in Europe, and one each in China and Korea, to continue to stay ahead of demand and allow our customers to maintain seamless operations.
As a result of the ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, and due to changing business strategies, Zscaler customers have reached out to ask about our business continuity plan. These organizations rely on Zscaler for strategic business operations and to help their employees securely work from any remote location. As part of our ISO27001 and SOC2 Type 2 certifications, and due to the nature of our business operating a mission-critical cloud, we are prepared for emergency operations and supply-chain impact.
However, we do test this preparedness and last week we conducted an unplanned drill. The drill mimicked a scenario in which no Zscaler offices in the U.S. or India were accessible. When the drill began, cloud operations team members were told to work remotely no matter their location. During this drill, the team provisioned, validated, and brought online a brand-new Zscaler data center in Milan, an area in which working from home is being adopted at an aggressive rate due to the spread of the virus. During this disaster drill, we validated what we already knew to be the case:
- The distribution of our staff and technology investments give us the ability to continue to operate remotely without compromising our customers’ security. Although communication is slower and more coordination is needed, we are still effective and able to continue to not only run but expand the Zscaler cloud.
- Our Network Operations Center (NOC) is able to monitor the health of our platform.
- Our reserve capacity at each site and global multitenant footprint allow us to continue to expand traffic and scale services despite not being able to access our inventory of equipment for prolonged periods of time.
- Our reserve stock and inventory allow us to operate even when the supply chain is impacted.
Zscaler services are delivered from Zscaler's own cloud, hosted in multiple geographically distributed, hardened locations that are redundant in power and connectivity. Our facilities, and in turn the cloud service, have the ability to run for days if the power grid is offline. These facilities are relied upon by Zscaler and are shared with other critical infrastructure providers such as telecoms, banks, and government services, which ensures that security, supply, and staffing remain top priorities for these locations.
We have confidence that we are prepared for any disaster, but we regularly conduct unplanned drills like this to test the system and improve the way we manage the cloud. It is satisfying to have successfully completed this drill during which we took the new Milan facility online to handle customer traffic. Global customers and partners can review the ways we ensure that we are able to meet diverse service and compliance requirements, including our ISO 27001 and SOC2 Type 2 certifications, at the following link: https://www.zscaler.com/company/compliance.
Misha Kuperman is the Zscaler Sr. Vice President, Cloud Operations & Ecosystems
