Florida Southern College is a small private institution with a small internal IT team and limited resources. Chief Information Officer Francine Neiling leads its technology function. The college must meet strict regulatory requirements, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and FERPA, while modernizing infrastructure within tight budget constraints. It originally relied on DSM for disaster recovery and data protection services; Thrive later acquired DSM and became the college's primary security and compliance partner.

Florida Southern College faced the dual challenge of modernizing its IT infrastructure and meeting strict regulatory requirements, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and FERPA, with limited resources and a small internal IT team.

Its network infrastructure was a mix of multiple vendors' equipment, which had previously led to campus-wide outages. Student information had to be secured, data loss prevention improved and multi-factor authentication deployed. The college also needed disaster recovery and data protection that would satisfy auditors and keep critical data recoverable.

CIO Francine Neiling recognized that the college needed continuous risk assessments to identify and remediate vulnerabilities, and that projects had to be prioritized by risk to fit the budget. The college had initially relied on DSM for disaster recovery and data protection; after Thrive acquired DSM, the relationship shifted toward proactive IT improvement and compliance.

Florida Southern initially engaged Thrive for specific projects, such as migrating student emails to the Cloud. As the college's needs grew, Thrive became its primary partner for security and compliance.

Thrive's cyber risk assessments gave the college detailed insight into gaps and risks, allowing it to allocate resources strategically and prioritize projects based on risk while staying within budget. Neiling noted that where other vendors delivered the basics, Thrive followed up with solutions and guidance to make everything work across the college's systems. Thrive provides regular network assessments and annual penetration tests, with quarterly autonomous pen testing and vulnerability scanning listed among the services, to maintain compliance and security.

For infrastructure, Thrive delivered a fully managed on-premise Cloud with scalable Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) and Data Protection as a Service (DPaaS), featuring immutable backups with cloud copy and orchestrated offsite recovery. Thrive was also instrumental in deploying multi-factor authentication, improving data loss prevention and securing student information, and it provides email and collaboration security and 24/7 server support with patch management.

The document lists the services as Cyber Risk Assessment, Quarterly Autonomous Pen Testing, On-Premise Cloud, DRaaS, DPaaS with immutable backups and cloud copy, Email & Collaboration Security, 24/7 Server Support with Patch Management, Multi-factor Authentication and Vulnerability Scanning.

• Achieved Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) and FERPA compliance with Thrive's guidance
• Only two minor findings in the college's 2024 audit, reflecting a stronger security posture
• Streamlined network infrastructure resolved multi-vendor equipment issues that had caused campus-wide outages
• Immutable backups and orchestrated offsite recovery keep data secure and recoverable
• Multi-factor authentication deployed and data loss prevention improved to secure student information
• Compliance work saves time and money, letting the small IT team focus on daily operations