Government
Unified Infrastructure for Public Safety and Administration: The Town of Davie’s Strategic Partnership with Thrive
The Town of Davie is in Broward County, Florida, near Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The Town operates as a centralized organization as it relates to IT, supporting
multiple service lines including public safety (police and fire), water management, administrative functions, and other municipal services. Nelson Martinez, Chief Information Officer, leads a team of about 20 that protects and maintains mission-critical systems and resident data. As an IT leader, Nelson prioritizes long-term vendor partnerships based on technical excellence and how companies treat customers after the contract is signed.
The Disaster Recovery Myth
When Nelson evaluated disaster recovery solutions for the Town of Davie, he discovered a pervasive misconception. “There’s a big fallacy out there. Sometimes people think that backup and recovery is disaster recovery, and it’s not,” shared Nelson. This confusion can be costly. Backup and recovery support day-to-day operations, but they form only one component of a true disaster recovery strategy.
Nelson faced three related obstacles:
- The need to support both law enforcement and administrative systems with unified infrastructure
- Compliance with Criminal Justice Information Systems (CJIS) standards
- The reality of a small IT team managing enterprise-scale infrastructure
Nelson refused to fragment critical services. As he explains, “I didn’t want to have a disaster recovery solution for police that was in one place and then everybody else in some other area.” This meant finding a single vendor capable of serving both public safety and administrative operations under FBI CJIS compliance.
Nelson’s search led him to Thrive. The company had invested significantly in CJIS-related requirements and demonstrated a deep understanding of government operations. But equally important was the depth of personal relationships with the Thrive team. As Nelson reflects, “It’s not just about the quality of the solutions. It’s also about the interactions, the customer service, and how does a company treat their customer once the ink on the paper is dry.”
Building Resilience from the Foundation Up
Thrive’s engagement with the Town of Davie began with a critical step, a Business Impact Assessment (BIA). Nelson insisted on this third-party approach because, as he explains, “It’s always better to bring a third party in to do analysis like that because it changes the dynamic a little bit.” The BIA helped establish Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) while making clear that disaster recovery is a shared organizational responsibility, not an IT-only initiative. This foundation proved essential for gaining leadership buy-in and resources.
With organizational alignment in place, Thrive helped to implement a unified Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution, supporting both public safety and administrative departments. The infrastructure includes connections at primary facilities that allow seamless access to the disaster recovery environment without requiring VPN or alternative, complicated connection methods.
Expanding on this foundation, the Town recently migrated its backups to an out-of-state location, where Thrive provides immutable backup capabilities. Nelson notes the significance, “All our backup and recovery items are replicated out of region. It helps me sleep a little better at night knowing that we’ve got that immutable capability out there.”
While the Town has not yet required full DR activation, Nelson implemented rigorous validation protocols. As a managed service, Thrive conducts weekly validation of all offsite backup jobs which ensures viable recovery capabilities before any crisis occurs. Additionally, Davie performs periodic spin-up testing of the DRaaS environment to verify functionality. This proactive approach means confidence in the infrastructure, not just hope that everything will work.
Complementing the disaster recovery infrastructure, Thrive provides the Town with another critical security service – penetration testing. Monthly autonomous pen testing gives continuous visibility into vulnerabilities. Nelson shares his philosophy on the need for this frequency, “If you really want to fix problems and remediate your environment as quickly as possible, you need to be doing pen testing on a monthly basis, at least initially, so you can see the progression month to month.”
One critical moment exemplified Thrive’s partnership approach. When Nelson felt the pen testing engagement needed more interaction with Thrive’s technical team, he escalated directly to leadership. Thrive responded immediately. “They came back and they said, Nelson, we’re going to get you what you want. You can meet with them as often as you need to.” This collaborative problem- solving transformed the relationship and set the tone for the entire partnership.
The success of this foundation now extends beyond initial deployments. Davie is expanding the communications infrastructure to three additional sites in 2027, two water plants and a new town hall facility under construction. Notably, the connections designed for disaster recovery have proven so valuable that they now serve as secondary communication paths for day-to-day operations, providing redundancy that extends well beyond the original scope.
“Thrive has a very good understanding of FBI CJIS standards. They have data center colocation and cloud options for DRaaS that are already certified. This is especially helpful for centralized government IT organizations that support LEOs (law enforcement organizations), as was the case with the Town of Davie.”- Nelson Martinez, Chief Information Officer, Town of Davie
About Thrive
Thrive is a NextGen 3.0 global technology outsourcing provider that empowers small and mid-market organizations to transform their technology into a strategic advantage. Offering a breadth of services from AI and cybersecurity to cloud, compliance, and traditional MSP/MSSP solutions, Thrive’s team of seasoned experts develop strategies that standardize, scale, and automate technology to achieve outsized ROI. From advisory services to a 24×7×365 SOC and NOC, Thrive provides end-to-end IT and cybersecurity management so clients can focus on innovation and growth. With Thrive, your business is always supported and always secure. Learn more at www.thrivenextgen.com or follow us on LinkedIn.