Salas O’Brien Unifies Rapid M&A Growth and Achieves CMMC Compliance With Egnyte

The Bottleneck: When Growth Outpaces Infrastructure

Salas O’Brien is an engineering and technical services firm that doesn't just grow—it scales with intention. Through a strategic merger and acquisition (M&A) engine, over the last two decades the firm has integrated more than 50 different organizations across 105 office locations. However, this fast-paced expansion created bottlenecks and technical debt for the IT department.

By 2023, the firm was managing file servers for nearly every separate office location and disconnected data silos. Every new merger brought its own hardware, its own folder structure, and its own drive letters. "Almost every office had its own file server, and every drive letter was used multiple times," recalls Michael Rabieh, SVP, Information Systems & Technology. "We had five different 'P:' drives across the company. It was impossible for engineers in different offices to collaborate effectively."

For a firm handling massive Civil 3D files, AutoCAD files, Revit models, and 3D point cloud scans, those silos weren't just an IT headache—they were a business bottleneck. Collaboration was impeded by VPNs or manual file transmittals, and maintaining aging on-premises infrastructure was no longer scalable or cost effective.

The Catalyst: Keeping Pace With Strategic Expansion

As Salas O’Brien’s merger cadence accelerated, the traditional method of managing disparate file servers began to reach its limits. The firm’s growth strategy relied on its ability to quickly absorb new talent and projects, but the technical friction of merging file systems was threatening to slow that momentum. “We had a large queue of domain integrations, and that queue was growing by the day,” recalls Rabieh.

Each new deal added a layer of complexity that risked jeopardizing the "one firm" vision. IT leaders realized that to sustain the pace of expansion, they could no longer afford the months of technical limbo that typically followed a merger. They needed a way to bridge the gap between signing a deal and achieving operational synergy, ensuring that new team members could contribute to the firm's collective expertise from their first day on the job. As VP of Enterprise Applications, Steven Haines described, “we needed to align our technology with how we were already operating—going from a collection of systems across offices to a single, unified firm.”

The Guide: A Centralized Data Ecosystem for Scalability

Salas O’Brien found the path forward with Egnyte, partnering with managed service provider Network Coverage (NetCov) to establish a foundation for long-term scalability. Instead of simply patching old servers, they began implementing Egnyte as a centralized data ecosystem—a "unified project layer" that could be extended to any new firm regardless of their previous infrastructure.

The scale of the undertaking has been significant and continues as a phased, company-wide rollout. To date, it has involved migrating hundreds of TB of historical and active project data and provisioning 2,600 initial users at the business unit level. This ongoing transition is allowing the firm to move away from localized hardware dependencies and create a repeatable, "turnkey" onboarding process. "The approach we are implementing with support from Egnyte and NetCov is giving us the scalable foundation we need," says VP of IT Operations Bruce Tarro. "From the initial rollout, we’ve been able to expand our capabilities and access new skill sets, creating momentum while continuing to learn and build as we bring new groups onto the platform, without the typical growing pains."

The Mission-Critical Requirement: CMMC Compliance

While implementing its centralized data ecosystem, Salas O’Brien also recognized the need for CMMC compliance, which was required to maintain and grow the company’s contract base with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and other clients with similar security requirements.

To accomplish that goal, Salas O’Brien built a secure enclave with Egnyte, utilizing NetCov as the strategic partner to lead the CMMC implementation. "We leveraged their combined expertise in technology and compliance to help establish our environment and did so in a shorter than anticipated timeframe," said Tarro.

Salas O’Brien’s CMMC compliance program and the firm’s ongoing partnership with Egnyte, as a FedRAMP Moderate Equivalent provider, have served as competitive differentiators for both Salas O’Brien and clients requiring advanced levels of security compliance. The company’s CMMC compliance status demonstrates that Salas O’Brien can effectively protect data that’s included in sensitive contracts with the company, across its federal and commercial projects.

The Hero: A Unified Platform for Global Collaboration

With Egnyte, Salas O’Brien's IT team has transformed from "firefighters" managing servers into facilitators of growth. They are implementing a white-glove migration process, using Egnyte’s migration tools to accelerate newly merged businesses into the Egnyte cloud.

The impact on merger integration has been immediate in the early phases. Previously, even the fastest integrations took four to five months. With Egnyte, those timelines are already compressing. "After we make a new merger partner official, we can begin collaborating within days," explains CIO Dan Vogt. "This new approach is fundamentally changing our ability to scale and is unwinding a lengthy integration backlog.”

The engineering workflows are also seeing dramatic improvement. "We're pushing point cloud data into Egnyte from a plant that is a quarter of a mile long, with 700 scans in this building," explains Haines. "The scale of things we're doing is just massive, and Egnyte handles it seamlessly."

The Results: Collaborating as a Unified Firm

The benefits of the Egnyte implementation extend far beyond the IT department. By unifying data, Salas O’Brien realized a 5% reduction in total costs across software licensing, hardware, and labor within the first year—a number they expect to grow as they continue to integrate more groups.

Beyond the financials, the platform has provided a standardized security posture that gives company leadership and clients peace of mind.

Today, Salas O’Brien is evolving from a collection of 105 offices into a single, cohesive powerhouse. Engineers can move between projects with ease, mergers are integrated with greater speed and technical precision, and the firm’s growth strategy is supported by a platform built for the future of engineering.

Summary of Success

• Infrastructure: Replaced 55+ legacy servers with a unified cloud platform
• Speed: Data migration to the cloud in as fast as one week
• Growth: Created a repeatable model for rapid M&A integration
• Cost: Realized a 5% Year-1 cost reduction on hardware and labor
• CMMC Compliance: Achieved compliance with CMMC’s 110 cybersecurity controls for current and future DoD business
• Collaboration: Lowered barriers and increased ease with which team members can collaborate