Case Study · FAF™ — Assessed RESILIENCE
Data Resilience
Engineer resilience. Eliminate risk. Achieve uninterrupted operations.
Framework Foundations
Fidelra transformed a fragile SQL estate into a resilient, failure-tolerant platform—assured
Measured Against Africa’s Data Standard
This case study demonstrates how Fidelra applied its Assurance Framework (FAF™) to transform a fragile, outage-prone SQL estate into a resilient, failure-tolerant platform—eliminating single points of failure, institutionalizing recovery discipline, and delivering measurable improvements in availability, recovery assurance, and operational confidence.
The Challenge
Mission-critical SQL workloads lacked resilience for sustained availability and rapid recovery. Years of reactive operations caused frequent outages, weak recovery posture, and rising operational risk—jeopardizing continuity and exposing the enterprise to compliance failures and penalties.
Pre-FAF™ Engagement
Reslience Score
15%
FAF™ Score Before Fidelra Intervention
key resilience challenges identified
Availability & Recovery –Single-instance SQL, untested failover, and manual recovery → frequent outages, extended downtime, and unreliable recovery outcomes.
Complexity & Resilience –Highly fragmented databases, unsupported infrastructure, and unvalidated HA/DR → elevated data-loss risk, prolonged outages, and constrained recovery confidence.
Operational Instability – Absence of resilience best practices, limited observability, ungoverned change, lack of 24×7 operational coverage, and failing automated jobs → repeated Sev-1 incidents and unstable platform operations.
Assessment Methodology:
FAF™ scoring across key domains—modernization, resilience, performance, cloud, and compliance—to deliver evidence-backed, audit-ready transformation insights.
What We Delivered
Resilience & High Availability Readiness
- HA/AG Modernization: Migrated critical databases to clustered HA/AG, 99.99% availability, 80% faster failover.
- Platform Hardening: Upgraded SQL 2018 → 2022, applied patches, eliminated 100% vulnerabilities.
- Recovery Assurance: Validated RPO/RTO via DR tests, cut recovery time by 70% with automated runbooks.
- Operational Controls: Implemented change management & monitoring, reduced incidents by 45%.
Operational Maturity & Monitoring
- Proactive Monitoring: Health, capacity & failover checks, 95% risks detected early, downtime ↓40%.
- Incident Readiness: Standardized alerts & workflows, MTTR ↓60%, SLA compliance ↑.
- Operational Stability: Automated recovery, Sev-1 incidents ↓70%.
- Capacity Forecasting: Predictive analytics, prevented 100% capacity outages, cost ↓15%.
Performance Engineering & Optimization
- Query & Index Optimization: Fixed slow queries, response time ↑65%, CPU ↓40%.
- Workload Distribution: Directed heavy reads to passive nodes, contention ↓50%.
- In-Memory Processing: Applied In-Memory OLTP for critical tables, transactions 3× faster.
- Partitioning & Compression: Split large tables, applied compression, storage ↓35%, scans faster.
Cloud Adoption Enablement
- Inventory: Cataloged all servers, 100% asset visibility.
- Compatibility & Security: Assessed Azure readiness, 98% workloads compatible, closed critical gaps.
- Landing Zone Readiness: Defined governance-aligned requirements, coordinated with infra/network teams for secure foundation.
- Migration Strategy: Built phased roadmap, minimized downtime, rollback-ready.
Security & Compliance Hardening
- Secure Pipeline: Encrypted cross-border data sharing, 100% compliance.
- Retention Policy: Automated enforcement, non-compliant data ↓90%.
- Access Governance: Privilege hygiene, stale identities eliminated, risk ↓95%.
- Data Integrity: Encryption + auditing, closed all critical vulnerabilities.
FAF™ Domain Score: Modernization
FAF™ Modernization Score
FAF™ Modernization Score
FAF™ Domain Score: Resilience
75%
SQL incidents reduced
90%
HA/DR readiness improved
80%
Monitoring coverage expanded
FAF™ Unified Score
87%
Post-engagement Resilience score
Post-Resilience
Impact
FAF™ Unified Resilience Score
15%Pre-FAF™ Resilience Readiness
87%Post-FAF™ Resilience Alignment
Resilience posture strengthened from legacy failover gaps to clustered HA architectures, reducing outage risk and improving recovery readiness.
Impact delivered through a structured assurance model
Strengthen Your SQL Data Platforms — Measured. Delivered.
Part of the Audit-Ready Modernization Advantage™, designed to transform your SQL environment into a high-performance, cloud-ready platform with measurable outcomes.
- Ensures high availability with tested HA/DR and failover readiness
- Validates RPO/RTO targets aligned to business and regulatory needs
- Eliminates critical vulnerabilities through secure, resilient architectures
- Improves operational stability while reducing incident severity and recovery time
Trusted by banks, telcos, and regulators across Africa and North America.
FAF™ ASSESSED EVIDENCE
This case study documents how FAF™ was applied to measure, standardize, and govern automation across a complex SQL estate — including domain signals, control validation, and measurable outcomes aligned to Africa’s Data Standard.
