Hosting, Infrastructure & Business Continuity

Protecting your learning management data is critical to maintaining business continuity and ensuring your organisation can recover quickly from unexpected incidents. Acorn PLMS provides a robust backup and recovery infrastructure designed to safeguard your system data, course content, user records, and enrollments.

Backup Frequency

Your organisation's data is backed up on a regular schedule to minimise data loss risk. Regular automated backups ensure that your system can be restored to a known good state with minimal operational impact. The frequency of backups is configured based on your deployment model and service level agreement. You should verify your specific backup schedule with your Acorn account team, as requirements may vary depending on your organisation's data volume, transaction rate, and recovery objectives.

Frequent backups provide multiple recovery points, allowing you to restore to different points in time if needed. This redundancy is essential for organisations that cannot afford extended downtime or significant data loss.

Offsite Storage

Acorn PLMS maintains backup copies in geographically diverse locations to protect against site-level failures. Your backups are not stored solely on your primary infrastructure; instead, they are replicated to offsite facilities to ensure availability even if your primary data centre experiences an outage.

Offsite storage protects your organisation against: - Data centre failures or natural disasters - Hardware failures affecting primary storage systems - Regional network disruptions - Physical security incidents

You can have confidence that your critical learning data remains accessible and recoverable regardless of what happens at any single location. The geographic distribution of backup storage is a key component of Acorn PLMS's disaster recovery strategy.

Encrypted Backup Media

All backup media used by Acorn PLMS is encrypted using industry-standard encryption protocols. Encryption protects your data both in transit to offsite storage facilities and at rest in backup repositories.

Encrypted backups ensure that: - Sensitive learner data, course content, and performance records remain confidential - Compliance requirements related to data protection are met - Your organisation's intellectual property in course materials is secured - Only authorised personnel and systems can access backup data

Encryption is applied automatically; you do not need to perform additional encryption steps. The encryption keys are managed securely and stored separately from the encrypted backup media itself.

Retention Policies

Acorn PLMS implements data retention policies that balance your organisation's business and compliance needs with efficient storage management. Backup retention policies determine how long backup copies are maintained before being securely deleted.

Your retention policy is typically configured during system setup and reflects: - Your organisation's regulatory and compliance requirements - Historical data access needs for reporting and audits - Storage cost considerations - Industry best practices for your sector

You should work with your Acorn implementation team to establish retention policies that align with your organisation's records management standards and legal obligations. Retention periods may vary for different data types; for example, learner completion records may be retained longer than temporary system logs.

Secure deletion procedures ensure that retained backup data cannot be recovered once its retention period expires, protecting privacy and meeting data protection regulations.

Restore Procedures

When you need to restore data or recover your system, Acorn PLMS provides clear, well-documented restore procedures. The restore process depends on the scope of recovery needed and the data that requires restoration.

Full System Recovery

In the event of a complete system failure, Acorn's infrastructure team can initiate a full system restore from the most recent backup. This process rebuilds your entire Acorn PLMS environment with all data, configurations, and settings from the backup point.

Partial Data Recovery

You may need to recover specific data without a full system restore. Acorn supports targeted recovery of: - Individual learner records or performance data - Course content and materials - Enrollment information - User account data - Historical reports and archives

Partial recovery allows you to address specific data loss incidents without disrupting your entire system.

Recovery Time Objectives

The time required to complete a restore depends on the amount of data being recovered and the recovery method used. You should discuss recovery time objectives (RTO) with your Acorn account team to understand realistic timelines for different recovery scenarios.

Initiating a Restore

To initiate a restore procedure:

1. Contact Acorn Support – Report the data loss or system issue to Acorn's technical support team with as much detail as possible about what needs to be recovered.
2. Identify Recovery Point – Work with the support team to identify the appropriate backup from which to restore. You may need to specify a particular date and time.
3. Authorise Recovery – Verify that you have the authority to approve the restore, as it may affect your live system and users.
4. Execute Restore – Acorn's infrastructure team performs the restore operation and validates that data has been successfully recovered.
5. Verify Results – Test the restored data and system functionality to ensure the recovery was successful and complete.

Best Practices for Data Protection

While Acorn PLMS provides comprehensive backup and recovery capabilities, you should also implement organisational practices to maximise data protection:

• Maintain accurate documentation of your system configuration and customisations
• Regularly test recovery procedures in your development or staging environment
• Retain export copies of critical data in formats suitable for long-term archival
• Establish clear escalation procedures for data loss incidents
• Educate system administrators on backup and recovery capabilities
• Review your retention and recovery policies annually

Your partnership with Acorn for managed hosting and infrastructure includes professional backup management as a core service. Acorn's team continuously monitors backup health and recovery readiness to ensure your organisation's data remains protected.

Capacity Planning & Scalability Capacity Planning & Scalability

Effective capacity planning ensures your Acorn PLMS deployment scales reliably as your organization grows and user demand increases. Acorn provides a robust infrastructure foundation with isolated environments, sandbox testing capabilities, and dedicated production infrastructure to support your performance and scalability requirements.

Environment Architecture

Multi-Environment Isolation

Your Acorn PLMS deployment spans distinct, isolated environments designed to protect production stability while enabling safe testing and development. Each environment operates within separate accounts and Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) with network segmentation and strict Identity and Access Management (IAM) boundaries.

Your infrastructure typically includes:

• Development Environment: Local development and separate server clusters where your team builds and tests new features before promotion
• Staging/UAT Environment: A dedicated staging environment where User Acceptance Testing occurs once development testing is completed
• Production Environment: Your live environment with dedicated FIFA stack infrastructure—no co-tenancy with other Acorn customers

This layered approach ensures that experimental work, testing activities, and production operations remain completely isolated, preventing configuration changes or test data from affecting live user experiences.

Dedicated Infrastructure

Acorn PLMS provides dedicated FIFA stack infrastructure for your production environment. This means your production deployment does not share physical or logical resources with other customers. Your organization has exclusive access to the infrastructure supporting your live learning platform, ensuring predictable performance and security isolation.

Testing & Validation Environments

Sandbox and Pilot Environments

Before full production implementation, your organization can leverage sandbox or pilot environments to validate your configuration, test workflows, and gather stakeholder feedback in a controlled setting. These test environments allow you to:

• Evaluate platform functionality with your specific use cases
• Configure and refine learning paths, content delivery, and reporting
• Conduct stakeholder testing without impacting production
• Experiment with advanced features and integrations

Sandbox environments are available upon request and provide a complete replica of your production configuration where you can safely test changes before rolling them to live users.

Production Testing Environment

In addition to sandbox environments, Acorn can provision an optional test tenant within your production infrastructure. This configuration allows you to run validation testing with real user data and realistic production conditions while maintaining complete separation from your active learning platform.

User Acceptance Testing Support

UAT Collaboration

Acorn works directly with your organization to define User Acceptance Testing criteria and support the validation process. Your UAT team can execute comprehensive testing scenarios to confirm the platform meets your business requirements before full launch.

The staging environment dedicated to UAT enables your stakeholders to:

• Validate end-user workflows and functionality
• Test integrations with your learning ecosystem
• Confirm reporting and analytics accuracy
• Identify configuration adjustments needed before production

Access to a full testing environment with representative data ensures your UAT team has everything needed to thoroughly evaluate the platform.

Production Readiness

Signed Agreement for Optimal Experience

While Acorn offers sandbox and staged environments for evaluation, the platform is optimized for organizations to move directly into production with a signed agreement. This approach provides several advantages:

• Immediate access to full production infrastructure and performance
• Faster time-to-value as your organization begins live deployments
• Access to Acorn's complete feature set without environment limitations
• Production-grade support and infrastructure from day one

Your Acorn implementation team works with you to ensure production readiness through UAT collaboration and pre-launch validation before your organization transitions to live operations.

Scaling for Growth

Capacity Planning Considerations

As you plan for your Acorn PLMS deployment, consider:

• Concurrent User Load: Your production infrastructure is sized to support your organization's concurrent user capacity. Work with your Acorn team to define capacity requirements based on your learner population and usage patterns.
• Growth Trajectory: Design your infrastructure to accommodate projected growth over your planning horizon. Acorn's dedicated infrastructure can be scaled to match your organization's expansion.
• Regional Deployment: Multi-region deployment capabilities allow you to distribute your platform across geographic regions to reduce latency, improve performance, and support distributed user populations.

Performance Optimization

Your production environment benefits from:

• Load Balancing: Distribution of user traffic across infrastructure resources ensures consistent performance as concurrent user load varies
• Auto-Scaling: Infrastructure that automatically adjusts capacity based on demand, ensuring optimal performance during peak usage periods
• Performance Monitoring: Ongoing infrastructure monitoring and optimization to maintain service quality

These capabilities work together to ensure your learning platform remains responsive and available as user demand fluctuates.

Getting Started

To implement an effective capacity planning strategy for your organization:

1. Define Capacity Requirements: Work with your Acorn team to quantify concurrent user capacity, geographic distribution, and growth projections
2. Plan Environment Strategy: Determine whether you'll use sandbox environments for pre-launch validation or move directly to production with a signed agreement
3. Execute UAT: Conduct comprehensive User Acceptance Testing in your staging environment to validate all configurations and workflows
4. Transition to Production: Move to your production environment with confidence, supported by Acorn's dedicated infrastructure and multi-region deployment capabilities

Your Acorn implementation team guides you through each phase, ensuring your deployment scales reliably to support your organization's learning objectives.

Cloud Hosting & Data Center Locations Cloud Hosting & Data Center Locations

AWS-Based Infrastructure

Acorn PLMS runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS), a globally distributed cloud infrastructure platform. This foundation ensures reliable, scalable hosting that can grow with your organisation's needs without requiring on-premises hardware investment or management.

Regional Data Centers

Your organisation can deploy Acorn PLMS across multiple regional data centers, giving you flexibility in where your data physically resides. Available regions include:

• United States – Primary region for North American deployments
• European Union – For organisations subject to EU data protection requirements
• Australia – For Asia-Pacific operations
• Canada – For Canadian operations and compliance needs

This geographic distribution allows you to position your learning management system closer to your users, reducing latency and improving performance while meeting regional data governance requirements.

Data Residency Options

Your organisation has control over data residency, meaning you can specify which geographic region(s) store your training data, user records, and course content. This flexibility is particularly important if you operate across multiple jurisdictions or have specific regulatory obligations regarding where data must be stored.

When implementing Acorn PLMS, work with your Customer Success Team during onboarding to determine the optimal region or regions for your deployment. If your organisation spans multiple geographies, Acorn can configure your system to route data appropriately based on your requirements.

Security & Data Protection

Encryption Standards

All your data is encrypted both in transit and at rest within Acorn's infrastructure. This dual-layer encryption ensures that sensitive information—including user credentials, learning records, course content, and assessment results—remains protected whether it is being transmitted across networks or stored on AWS servers.

Logical Tenant Separation

Acorn implements strict application access controls that logically separate each customer's data environment (tenant) from all others. This architectural approach prevents any possibility of data leakage between organisations using Acorn PLMS. Your courses, user data, and learning records remain completely isolated from other customers' information.

Intellectual Property Protection

Acorn will never share, redistribute, or repurpose any content you upload to the platform. Your organisation retains full ownership of all courses, training materials, assessments, and other intellectual property. Combined with encrypted storage and access controls, this commitment ensures your proprietary training content stays confidential and secure.

Implementation Support for Multi-Region Deployments

Onboarding & Data Migration

When you deploy Acorn PLMS across multiple regions or require complex data residency configurations, Acorn's implementation team provides comprehensive support. Standard implementation timelines range from 6 to 8 weeks, with key milestones including:

• Kickoff – Define regional requirements and data residency strategy
• Data Migration – Transfer user records, historical completion data, courses, and other content to your designated region(s)
• Configuration – Set up dashboards, workflows, integrations, and user access controls
• Administrator Training – Prepare your team to manage the system
• Go-Live – Launch with ongoing support from your Customer Success Team

Dedicated Implementation Resources

Your implementation is managed by a dedicated Implementation Manager who coordinates with technical specialists, data migration experts, and your internal team. If your organisation requires additional strategic guidance or proactive support, optional Technical Account Manager (TAM) services are available to provide ongoing strategic leadership throughout your deployment and beyond.

Data Migration Planning

Acorn's team handles data migration planning, provides import tools, performs validation and testing, and offers adjustments as needed. Your organisation is responsible for extracting data from existing systems in CSV or Excel format, preparing and cleaning that data, and validating accuracy after migration. Acorn coordinates this process to ensure minimal disruption to your operations.

Performance & Scalability

By leveraging AWS's global infrastructure, Acorn PLMS automatically scales to accommodate your growing user base, expanding course libraries, and increasing reporting demands. Regional data centers mean your system can maintain responsive performance even as your organisation grows across multiple geographies.

You can confidently plan for future expansion—whether adding users, locations, or regions—without concerns about infrastructure limitations. AWS's managed services handle the underlying scaling and redundancy, allowing you to focus on learning outcomes rather than infrastructure management.

Getting Started

During your initial implementation conversations with Acorn's Customer Success Team, discuss your organisation's data residency requirements, geographic footprint, and compliance obligations. Your Implementation Manager will work with you to select the appropriate region(s) and configure your deployment accordingly.

If you're evaluating Acorn PLMS and want to explore hosting and infrastructure options before committing, request a two-week demo tenant configured to match your deployment requirements. Acorn assigns dedicated resources to provide personalised guidance and demonstrate capabilities relevant to your specific use case.

Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity Disaster Recovery & Business Continuity for Acorn PLMS

Establishing a robust disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity plan (BCP) is essential for maintaining uninterrupted access to your Acorn PLMS platform. This article provides guidance on structuring your continuity strategy, managing system maintenance, and ensuring your organisation can respond effectively to disruptions.

Understanding Your Recovery Objectives

Your disaster recovery strategy should be built on clearly defined Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO). These metrics form the foundation of your business continuity planning:

• RTO (Recovery Time Objective): The maximum acceptable time your Acorn PLMS system can be offline before significant operational impact occurs. Your RTO will depend on how critical the platform is to your daily learning operations.
• RPO (Recovery Point Objective): The maximum acceptable amount of data loss, measured in time. This determines how frequently your system data must be backed up to meet your continuity requirements.

Your organisation should work with your Acorn implementation team during onboarding to establish these targets based on your operational priorities and risk tolerance. These objectives will guide all subsequent disaster recovery activities, including backup frequency, failover procedures, and testing schedules.

System Maintenance and Update Management

Proactive maintenance is a critical component of business continuity. Acorn PLMS supports automated system updates and maintenance to minimise disruption to your learning operations.

Scheduling Maintenance Windows

System updates and maintenance activities should be scheduled during off-hours to avoid impacting active users and learning activities. Automating these processes reduces manual intervention and ensures consistent application of patches and updates.

Approval and Change Control

Before implementing any system updates or maintenance activities on your Acorn PLMS deployment, your organisation must obtain approval from Leidos. This approval process ensures that all changes align with your security policies, compliance requirements, and operational constraints.

Automated maintenance is available as an option with Acorn, though pricing may vary depending on the scope and frequency of your maintenance requirements. During your initial scoping discussions or when expanding your service agreement, clarify the cost structure for automated maintenance so you can incorporate it into your continuity planning budget.

Initial System Configuration and Setup

A properly configured system is the foundation of effective business continuity. Acorn provides comprehensive initial system configuration and setup during your onboarding and implementation phase.

Implementation Phase Configuration

Your Acorn implementation team will configure your PLMS to align with your organisational requirements, user structures, and learning workflows. This setup establishes the baseline from which your system operates and should reflect your business continuity requirements.

During implementation, ensure you communicate your: - User access requirements and role hierarchies - Data backup and recovery preferences - Integration requirements with existing systems - Geographic or regional hosting considerations - Compliance and regulatory requirements

This foundational configuration directly impacts your system's resilience and your ability to recover quickly from disruptions.

Developing Your Business Continuity Plan

Your BCP documentation should clearly articulate how your organisation will maintain critical learning operations during and after a disruption.

Key Documentation Elements

Your BCP should include:

1. Contact and Escalation Procedures: Document the key contacts for your Acorn support team, internal IT stakeholders, and leadership personnel who need to be notified in the event of a system disruption.

2. Failover Procedures: Outline the specific steps your team will follow to activate backup systems or alternate procedures if the primary Acorn PLMS deployment becomes unavailable. This includes manual workarounds if failover automation is not available.

3. Recovery Procedures: Document the process for restoring full service once the incident has been resolved, including data validation steps and user communication protocols.

4. Role Assignments: Clearly assign responsibilities for different aspects of the recovery process so everyone understands their role during an incident.

5. Communication Plans: Establish protocols for communicating status updates to learners, instructors, administrators, and other stakeholders during an outage.

Disaster Recovery Testing

Regular DR testing ensures that your documented procedures actually work when needed and that your team is prepared to execute them under pressure.

Testing Strategy

Consider implementing a phased testing approach:

• Tabletop Exercises: Conduct discussion-based drills where your team walks through recovery procedures without actually failing over systems.
• Partial Failover Tests: Test specific components or features in a controlled environment to verify procedures.
• Full Failover Tests: Periodically conduct comprehensive tests that simulate a complete system failure and recovery cycle.

Test Documentation

Document all DR tests, including: - Date and scope of the test - Procedures tested and results - Time to complete each recovery phase - Any issues identified and remediation actions taken - Updates made to procedures based on test findings

This documentation creates a record of your DR readiness and helps you track improvements over time.

Continuity Planning Considerations

Effective business continuity extends beyond just technical recovery:

• Regular Reviews: Schedule periodic reviews of your RTO/RPO targets, BCP documentation, and DR procedures to ensure they remain relevant as your organisation and use of Acorn PLMS evolves.
• Stakeholder Communication: Ensure all relevant personnel understand the business continuity plan, their roles, and how to access necessary documentation during an incident.
• Training: Provide training to staff who will be involved in executing recovery procedures so they are familiar with the steps before an actual incident occurs.
• Vendor Coordination: Maintain clear communication channels with your Acorn support team and ensure they are aware of your continuity requirements and testing schedules.

Next Steps

Work with your Acorn implementation team to establish your specific RTO and RPO targets during onboarding. Develop comprehensive BCP documentation tailored to your organisation's requirements, and establish a regular schedule for testing and updating your disaster recovery procedures.

Uptime SLA & Monitoring Uptime SLA & Monitoring

Acorn PLMS is designed to support your organisation's learning and development operations with reliable, always-available access to your learning management system. Our infrastructure is built on proven cloud technologies with comprehensive monitoring and alerting capabilities to maintain the high availability your users depend on.

Platform Availability Guarantees

Acorn PLMS maintains a 99.9%+ uptime service level agreement (SLA), ensuring your platform is available when your learners, instructors, and administrators need it most. This industry-standard availability level translates to minimal planned and unplanned downtime, allowing your organisation to operate learning programmes without disruption.

Our commitment to this SLA is supported by redundant infrastructure across multiple availability zones, automated failover mechanisms, and proactive maintenance practices. You can rely on consistent platform performance throughout your academic year, training cycles, and critical learning periods.

Infrastructure Monitoring

Your Acorn PLMS deployment is continuously monitored using enterprise-grade monitoring solutions to detect and address issues before they impact your users.

Datadog Monitoring

Acorn leverages Datadog for comprehensive application and infrastructure monitoring. Datadog provides real-time visibility into system performance, including:

• Application performance metrics and response times
• Resource utilisation across your infrastructure
• Database performance and query analysis
• Custom dashboards tailored to your deployment

Datadog's deep integrations with cloud infrastructure allow us to track behaviour across your entire stack, from frontend user experience to backend system resources.

AWS CloudWatch

For organisations deploying on Amazon Web Services, AWS CloudWatch provides native cloud monitoring and observability. CloudWatch monitors:

• Compute resource utilisation (CPU, memory, disk)
• Network performance and data transfer
• Application logs from across your infrastructure
• Custom metrics specific to your learning workflows

CloudWatch integration with your AWS environment enables automatic scaling and resource optimisation, ensuring your platform scales smoothly with demand.

Automated Alerting

Monitoring is only effective when combined with rapid response. Acorn PLMS includes automated alerting that notifies your infrastructure and support teams of potential issues before they become user-facing problems.

Our alerting framework monitors critical thresholds including:

• System resource availability and capacity
• Application error rates and performance degradation
• Database connectivity and transaction processing
• Service health across all platform components

When alerts are triggered, your operations team receives immediate notification through configured channels, enabling rapid investigation and resolution. This proactive approach minimises the impact of any infrastructure challenges.

What This Means for Your Organisation

With Acorn PLMS's 99.9%+ uptime SLA and continuous monitoring infrastructure, your organisation can:

• Deliver learning programmes with confidence, knowing your platform is monitored 24/7
• Minimise disruptions to instructor-led training, self-paced courses, and assessments
• Support global learners across multiple time zones with reliable, consistent access
• Meet compliance requirements for availability and business continuity in regulated sectors
• Scale your learning programmes without worrying about infrastructure reliability

Maintenance and Planned Downtime

While Acorn PLMS maintains 99.9%+ availability, occasional planned maintenance is necessary to apply security updates, infrastructure improvements, and platform enhancements. Your Acorn implementation team communicates planned maintenance windows in advance, allowing you to schedule around critical learning activities.

Planned maintenance is typically scheduled during low-usage periods and completed efficiently to minimise impact on your learning operations.

Monitoring Your Experience

Beyond infrastructure monitoring, you have visibility into your platform's performance through Acorn's administrative dashboards. You can monitor:

• System performance metrics
• User access patterns and concurrent session counts
• Course and assessment completion rates
• Integration status with your connected systems

This visibility helps your organisation optimise your learning platform configuration and identify opportunities to enhance user experience.

Support for Infrastructure Issues

If you experience any performance concerns or suspect infrastructure issues, your Acorn support team can investigate using the same monitoring tools that protect your platform. Support requests are escalated based on severity and impact, with critical infrastructure issues receiving immediate attention.

When contacting support about performance concerns, provide details such as:

• When the issue started
• Which features or users are affected
• Any error messages or unusual behaviour observed

This information helps your support team quickly identify and resolve infrastructure-related issues.

Summary

Acorn PLMS's 99.9%+ uptime guarantee, supported by Datadog and CloudWatch monitoring with automated alerting, ensures your learning management system remains reliably available to support your organisation's educational goals. This infrastructure commitment, combined with proactive monitoring and rapid response capabilities, allows you to focus on delivering excellent learning experiences rather than worrying about platform availability.