Case study: Onna leverages SADA’s services and programs to strengthen security and extend marketing reach

Today’s modern workforce collaborates, communicates, and shares content through a collection of tools that are growing faster than ever. For most organizations, as their digital workplace undergoes rapid change, data proliferates, content sprawls, and knowledge fragments.

Onna, a data management platform, enables enterprises to gain visibility and tighter control of their unstructured data by collecting and seamlessly integrating data from disparate sources, including Google Workspace, Slack, and Confluence, then placing the data into a single source management platform.  

Connecting and unifying siloed data and metadata from original sources allows legal and IT teams to enhance key use cases, including data governance, internal investigations, and eDiscovery.

Business challenge

Onna is all in on Google Cloud. The company’s data management platform is deployed in Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and their employees use Google Workspace productivity tools (i.e., Gmail, Meet, Chat, Drive, Docs, Sheets) to connect and collaborate.

To augment their long-standing relationship with Google Cloud, Onna engaged SADA, a multiple-time Google Cloud Partner of the Year, for enhanced support and to help identify opportunities that would optimize Onna’s cloud spend for evolving business goals.

Expanding the SADA relationship to improve security & optimize marketing

Midway into the current three-year agreement, Onna decided to expand their relationship with SADA beyond cost optimization and managed cloud services support to include an examination of their overall security and marketing opportunities in the Google Cloud ecosystem.

“It was a good time to leverage some of SADA’s capabilities that we hadn’t already taken advantage of,” says Valenti Jove, Director of Engineering Operations at Onna. “We presented SADA with three areas of importance: (1) our IT team wanted to validate and evolve our security posture, (2) we needed to upgrade our GKE cluster nodes’ pod security policies, and (3) our sales team wanted to introduce our data management platform to Google customers.”

Solution

To begin, Onna leveraged SADA’s Professional Services to execute a Cloud Security Confidence Assessment. The assessment evaluates current controls and provides best practices to reduce risks and prepare for threats. Within two weeks of working closely with Onna and diving deep into their Google Cloud environment, SADA’s Security Experts delivered a comprehensive five-point report with findings and recommendations.

“It’s great working with SADA’s knowledgeable Security team,” says Michael Hoffman, Lead Security Engineer at Onna. “If I have a question, I enter it into our SADA channel and the team jumps on it. They validated things we’re doing well, underscored our thoughts on implementation priorities, and provided improvement points that we could tweak to ensure that we’re following best practices.” 

Upgrading cluster nodes for the latest and greatest security policies

Onna was aware that it would soon be time to upgrade their GKE cluster nodes from the existing pod security policies that were scheduled to be deprecated. “We simultaneously tried out the solution that Kubernetes offers natively and also evaluated alternatives that could provide more capacity for our operational requirements,” says Hoffman.

While Onna has the internal resources to accomplish the research and implementation of new tools, Jove decided to accelerate and offload this work. SADA Engineers listened to the clear goals and objectives from Jove and presented a shortlist of options.

Together, Jove and SADA landed on Gatekeeper, an open source policy controller that enables resource validation and audit functionality, as the optimal software to enforce policies that could make the Onna platform even more secure in GKE. Next, SADA delivered GKE-customized configuration templates and the necessary open source code for Onna’s Gatekeeper policies and replaced the pod security policies.

Accelerating go-to-market strategies in the Google Cloud ecosystem

After completing a successful launch on the Google Cloud Marketplace, Onna’s Partnerships and Marketing teams were seeking ways to extend their innovative platform’s reach into the Google Cloud ecosystem. “SADA was a natural marketing resource for us to approach given our relationship on the technical side,” says Nicole Thompson, Senior Director of Growth at Onna.

Onna soon joined SADA’s SaaS Alliance Program, leveraging the power of the SADA brand and instituting co-marketing initiatives to enrich their sales pipeline.

What immediately became clear was that SADA’s deep Google Cloud ecosystem connections can broaden our reach and start new conversations with prospects.

Nicole Thompson | Senior Director of Growth at Onna

Impact

Better organizing projects, defining roles for improved cloud security

As a result of working with SADA on the Cloud Security Confidence Assessment, Jove and Onna have been able to improve information security for their customers. Now Jove and the Onna IT team have more time to focus on their core data integration offerings, confident in their Google Cloud and GKE policy choices 

“We store a lot of private information for our customers, so security is central to everything we do,” says Jove. “One of the outcomes gained from this security assessment was a recommendation that we’ve implemented to better organize projects in Google Cloud and how to assign more defined roles with different branches and trees, which SADA curated specifically for our needs.”

Working with SADA on the research, code development, and implementation of the Gatekeeper security policy controller allowed Jove and Onna to save seven to eight weeks of internal time and allow staff to concentrate on their business solution and develop new features for clients.

Alliance resources for co-marketing/co-selling in the Google ecosystem 

As for SADA’s SaaS Alliance Program, Onna has been very impressed with the onboarding process. “The SADA SaaS Alliance Program has helped us level-up our Google Cloud marketing,” says Kayla Miles, Partnerships Manager at Onna.

SADA provided extensive options on how to co-market and co-sell within the Google Cloud ecosystem. SADA is a great resource to gut-check if we’re heading down the right path. They have deep expertise and are great people to work with.

Kayla Miles | Partnerships Manager at Onna

Although Onna just joined the SaaS Alliance Program, the organization has already conducted technical and sales presentations with SADA Account Executives and Sales Associates, resulting in introductions to accounts not previously on their radar. Onna has also completed a branded SADA partner page, which captures customer leads, and their CTO has appeared as a guest on SADA’s Cloud N Clear podcast and increased Onna’s market exposure for their data management solution.  

Overall, by leveraging SADA’s Professional Services and unique partnership opportunities, SADA helped Onna:  

• Validate five vital domains of cybersecurity in two weeks
• Upgrade their GKE cluster nodes and write customized code for Gatekeeper
• Participate in Alliance co-marketing activities to enrich their sales pipeline
• Increase market visibility within the Google Cloud ecosystem 
• Strengthen their security posture with better project organization, fine-tuned permissions, and more granular IAM roles