Why Lightstone Trusted IBM With Its Most Valuable Asset: Data

Every business talks about data. Few understand what it really takes to protect it.

In this episode of Behind The Stack, host Jade Barter sits down with Werner Ferreira, Group IT Infrastructure Manager at Lightstone, one of South Africa's leading data and analytics companies.

Werner shares what it takes to manage and protect the infrastructure behind millions of data points, the challenges of balancing performance, security and cost, and why resilience has become a business-critical priority in today's threat landscape.

We discuss:
• The role data plays in modern business decision-making
• Why infrastructure is more important than ever
• The realities of ransomware and cyber risk
• How Lightstone approaches storage, recovery and resilience
• Common misconceptions about enterprise technology
• The impact of AI on infrastructure and data management
• What business leaders should be thinking about today

Whether you're a business owner, IT leader, or simply curious about the technology powering some of South Africa's most data-driven organisations, this episode offers valuable insights into the systems that keep modern business running.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Every business says data is the most important factor. Very few created like it. You are to hear every business alone. Technology alone will not dictate your business when something goes wrong. Silvana, if Lightstone lost access to all of its data tomorrow, what would the impact be on the business?

SPEAKER_01 0:38

So in Lightstone, we deal with massive customers. We've got the banking sector that we look after, we've got the massive share of the automotive industry. So if you just go by user base and the people that we work with on a daily, that would be catastrophic. We will apart from the reputational, there's SLAs in place and we will get smacked quite hard. So it's not something I even want to imagine.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, so it's not something you would take light and and not something that yeah you can ignore.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Definitely not. No, we are doing as much as we can. And um suppose in in our business is not you can never do everything. You do as much as you can. The uh bad actors out there is always out to get you. So yeah, we've got our work cut out for us.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

For someone listening who maybe doesn't know, what is Lightstone uh in a nutshell? What is it that you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

So Lightstone is a uh fundamentally a uh data and analytics business. We look after the automotive uh sector as well as the property sector. We do uh business intelligence that help our customers make some good and and and informed decisions when it comes to their businesses. So it's really uh about looking after, we look after the banks, we've got the real estate agents that use as our systems, OEMs in the automotive uh sector, and uh dealerships, a lot of the dealerships throughout the country that makes use of our analytics and our data that we uh prepare for them and make help them make better decisions on the daily.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

And what is that type of data? Is it people's information? And can you share some light you don't have to if you can't?

SPEAKER_01 2:29

I can I can kind of uh talk to it some. So what we do in the banking space is we are we we do valuations of of properties. So whatever goes to the deeds office, we buy all that data and then we go and and do our analytics and we massage the data. We then kind of we give the the um we give the the both the banking industry and the insurance industry, it's it's risk analysis on the insurance side. Banking side, we we really get to show them what properties are worth. We can tell what your neighbor's house was sold for. Um so it's really analytics game where we we've got a lot of data when it comes to your property and your neighbors and the neighborhood and those kind of things. So that's the the space we play in.

SPEAKER_00 3:13

And and what are your responsibilities with managing and protecting all of that data?

SPEAKER_01 3:19

So I'm the group infrastructure manager for for the lights and business. So I'm I'm tasked with looking after the data centers, everything in there, the server platforms, um, our Azure business, our footprint within Azure, the redundancy and the resilience of our of our systems, of our infrastructure, and uh make sure that we can recover on the day that something horribly might go wrong.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

And with storing all this data and some of the solutions out there, what is what is crucial or priority for you?

SPEAKER_01 3:52

We needed a platform that could handle high throughput database workloads, integrate properly with our backup and virtualization stack, and give us confidence should something go wrong, and we'd be able to recover cleanly and quickly. So when we were looking at a platform from a storage perspective, we were really looking at higher performance uh throughput for our databases to integrate properly with our backup and virtualization stack and to give the business the confidence that should something go wrong, we could restore cleanly and quickly and enable business to carry on as usual.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

So then why did IBM Flash system stand out from the alternatives or as the solution you went with? What what made what was what was the appeal to it?

SPEAKER_01 4:45

So when we first were introduced to the IBM Flash Systems, we really were intrigued by the enterprise performance that it offered, the cyber resilience, the platform maturity, and also the support that they they given us post uh procuring the hardware and putting it into place and have it work for us. Um so it's not just general purpose storage, it's really a platform designed for critical business workloads where performance and efficiency was one of the main concerns and it hit the mark every time. That combination was key. We needed storage that could support demanding databases and analytics loads while also giving us the tools to protect, manage, recover the data with confidence.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

IBM often can be perceived as expensive or complex. Um, what was your experience like with it?

SPEAKER_01 5:39

I think the perception is definitely out there, but I think what IBM brought to the table for us was performance, uh resilience, data protection, and ransomware resilience. And if you break those down, it's really about the performance is where Lightstone uses like analytical and database workloads. Um they are pretty impressive when it comes to the output and throughput, IOPS. The resilience is where the storage platform is designed to handle failure well and not just give you the throughput all day long. It's what happens when things go wrong and how you you bounce back from those. So the ransomware resilience portion is where the storage is capable of helping you get back from an attack. It's how you the the recovery points that it offers, it's got the immutability built into the actual drives, and it's the ability to get back to a known good state without having to deal with ransom negotiations after the fact.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

So, how important are ransomware protection and security in in today's environment?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

So, ransomware has definitely changed the landscape for infrastructure teams. Where before we were always bothered about uptime and backups and and keeping the systems up, ransomware has now changed that landscape to where we need to have a look at your backups being attacked, your your production systems being brought down where data gets encrypted. And that has made a massive difference in in the infrastructure world and how you fight these new vectors that you have to deal with on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

How do you balance speed, security, cost, and simplicity when making these technology decisions?

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Uh the honest answer is that you rarely get to maximize on all four of those aspects. Um every technology decision involves some trade-offs. First is speed is important for the workloads that we run on top of the storage, and that's what business expects of us. We've got the security, which is a non-negotiable. You're not gonna ever get away from securing your data as it is the fundamental part of your business. So cost matters because IT needs to be uh financially responsible, and uh simplicity matters because the complex environments when they need to be restored or they need to be built back up from scratch after an attack makes things a lot more complicated than it should be, and it introduces operational risk. So breaking it down, my decision framework is really to have a look and see what fails, what is the blast radius. If that's massive and it's catastrophic, you don't cut corners when it comes to cost. If it's contained and recoverable, then cost becomes uh an easier conversation, and that's something where we where we balance cost versus the performance and the security.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Yeah, so I think for people listening, that balance is almost impossible to get 100% right, but it but it is important to weigh up what is most critical to a business 100%, whether that's security or or speed, uh, they've got to weigh up what the pros and cons are. And and like you say, some things cost is irrelevant if that's the most important thing to your business, like security not going down and not having a breach. What impact has IBM flash system had on your business?

SPEAKER_01 9:12

So the best infrastructure is usually invisible, but the impact that it makes is it can't be missed. When your storage platform is is fast, stable, and resilient, those are the things that that give business the uh comfort and to and confidence in in your IT infrastructure that uh they can keep the doors open and keep the lights on. So the value is not only in raw performance, it's really about reducing risk for the business, it's uh improving the stability. We really looking at simplifying operations again, it's when things go wrong, you don't need complex systems to further cripple you.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

How is AI then changing? Obviously, a hot topic at the moment. How is that changing the way businesses think about data and storage?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

AI has uh changed the the storage conversation completely. Businesses are realizing that AI is only as good as the data behind it. So poorly structured data, uh unprotected data, fragmented data is all factors that need to be looked at when you want when you're building your AI strategy within a business. From a storage point of view, AI raised the bar. It's reliant on performance, scalability, and structure within the data and strong protection as well. So those are all the factors that we need to look at when we are putting these storage solutions together for a business like ours. IBM is more moving their flash systems in 2026 to be AI driven. They built in cyber resilience as well, which does help businesses to better combat attacks on the fly real time rather than sitting waiting for systems to fall over.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

In your opinion, Vanna, is is IBM still relevant? Are they innovative in in obviously this fast-paced, ever evolving technology landscape?

SPEAKER_01 11:08

IBM remains relevant because uh they have invested a lot in um AI integrated management as well as their simplified operations. In a market where storage is no longer just about capacity and speed that matters, but it's all the the factors that I mentioned just now that comes into play and makes uh infrastructure so much more resilient to to these attacks.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Uh what advice in in closing, yeah, would you give to someone who's got to make an infrastructure decision as big as the ones you've had to make? What are some practicals or some things they should be aware of?

SPEAKER_01 11:47

So my advice would be to not treat infrastructure spend and storage spend as a grudge purchase. You need to take your business's core data and the value it brings and and what what it means to the business, and you need to protect that in the best way possible. So when you do go, go team up with people like Expand IT and First Distribution, they are great partners and they'll help you to come and sit with you, uh understand your environment, and build you a solution that will safeguard you better. Should the unfortunate day come where you get ransomware or you get attacked. These uh baddies are out there all day, all night, they don't stop. They are on our doorsteps on the daily. So yeah, this is definitely something that I highly, highly recommend people and businesses take seriously. Um, there's many levels to to securing not just your data but your environments, and storage is now in that realm as well. It's not just a firewall, it's not just your your users, it's now on a storage level as well.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

Vana, thank you so much for your time, insights, information. It's yeah, I think been hugely valuable for me and and people listening. And yeah, look forward to hearing more about what Lightstone does and and all the work behind the scenes to protect all of people's data. So thank you again. Thank you, Jade. It's a pleasure being here.