Restored 800+ critical VMs in less than 20 hours, significantly beating the 24-hour business continuity target
Achieved a 2 TB/day data ingestion, providing the Security Operations Center with 12 months of total historical visibility
Empowered analysts with Google AI tools, shifting focus from "maintenance" to active security
Achieved a one-hour Recovery Point Objective, ensuring near-zero data loss for 340 TB of critical transactional systems
MC used Google SecOps Enterprise Plus and a cloud-based disaster recovery environment to ensure a resilient, fail-safe SOC.
MC used Google SecOps Enterprise Plus and a cloud-based disaster recovery environment to ensure a resilient, fail-safe SOC.
Challenging the status quo: Breaking the cycle of tool maintenance and recovery gaps
For MC, digital security is far more than a technical checkbox; it is a vital social mission. As one of Portugal's leading retailers, the company operates at the heart of daily life. Any disruption to their digital infrastructure doesn't just impact a balance sheet—it risks the continuity of services for millions of citizens. However, as their digital footprint expanded, the team faced a growing burden. Their Security Operations Center (SOC) was increasingly bogged down by the "toil" of managing legacy tools rather than investigating threats. "We wanted to assure we had the ability to manage the environment without the team becoming more focused on operating the solution than doing security," explains Augusto Moreira, Area Manager of Security Operation Center and Identity Access Management at MC.
Beyond daily defense, MC needed to solve the ultimate reliability puzzle: the "3rd site"—a dedicated, cloud-based disaster recovery environment designed to act as a fail-safe outside their existing physical data centers. Protecting their "Minimum Viable Company"—the core systems, 800+ VMs, and 340 TB of critical data (including complex Oracle and SQL Server environments)—required a level of resilience that previous market alternatives couldn't deliver. The requirements were non-negotiable: a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of under one hour and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of under 24 hours.
MC realized that incremental improvements wouldn't suffice; they needed a disruptive initiative. They chose Google Cloud to challenge the status quo, seeking a partner with the key to automate recovery and scale security. This wasn't just a migration; it was a journey to ensure that even in the face of a total data center failure or a sophisticated cyberattack, MC's critical services would be successfully restored within required SLAs.
Security is a foundational pillar of our strategy. We approach every project as a shared mission. By fostering a culture of collective ownership and collaboration, we successfully navigated significant hurdles to deliver a winning outcome.
José Carlos Alves
IT Infrastructure Platform Engineering Area Manager, MC
A disruptive "Mission Mindset" for a
future-ready retail leader
MC redefined their defensive posture by implementing Google Security Operations (SecOps) Enterprise Plus. This "Next-Generation SOC" transition allowed them to scale massively, ingesting 2 TB of data per day with 12 months of hot retention, providing a 360-degree view of their environment. But the heart of this change was the human element. With Gemini in Google SecOps, MC empowered its analysts to move beyond manual toil and focus their expertise on high-value investigations.
In a real-life scenario, a security analyst no longer spends hours writing complex queries or sifting through disparate logs. Instead, they use Natural Language AI prompts to ask Gemini for instant summaries of alerts or to generate sophisticated threat-hunting queries. This drastically reduces incident response times and allows the team to leverage Google Threat Intelligence to anticipate attacks. This automation has allowed them to grow their detection stack to over 1.600 active rules without increasing headcount.
Beyond threat detection, MC established a high performance "3rd site" on Google Cloud VMware Engine and Compute Engine. This cloud-native architecture serves as a digital vault, allowing MC to replicate their entire on-premises environment into the cloud without refactoring code. This initiative replaces legacy solutions with a streamlined process capable of protecting a massive 340 TB hybrid estate. Rather than struggling with the unpredictability of older systems, MC now leverages a standardized, repeatable process that ensures the "Minimum Viable Company" remains safe and recoverable.
This "3rd site" functions as a critical "recovery bubble" that spins up only when needed, maximizing cost efficiency. It also provides consistency and predictability across the overall process. By working with Google Cloud, MC ensures that their core retail applications stay resilient regardless of production changes. This mission-driven infrastructure has already proven its worth: in their latest validation exercise, the company restored their entire critical operations in less than 20 hours—beating their 24-hour RTO target and achieving a near-zero data loss RPO of less than one hour.
MC's "initiative" represents more than just a technical update; it is the blueprint for their future as a digital-first retail leader. By merging the proactive intelligence of an AI-driven SOC with the unprecedented reliability of the "3rd site" recovery bubble, MC has built a posture of cyber resilience. The collaboration with Google Cloud provides a foundation that allows the company to innovate with speed and confidence, knowing that their mission to serve millions is protected by a scalable, future-proof infrastructure.
As they continue to embrace the next frontier of AI and cloud capabilities, MC is not just keeping pace with the industry—they are setting the standard for a secure, resilient, and trust-based relationship with their customers for years to come.
We chose Google Secops because we wanted to do disruption instead of just continuous improvement. We knew we had a chance to have huge scalability and a partner who would let us mature very fast. This was made possible because we aligned with the right partners and the right solution for it.
Augusto Moreira
Area Manager of Security Operation Center and Identity Access Management, MC
MC is a leader in the food retail sector in Portugal (Continente, Continente Modelo, Continente Bom Dia, Continente Online, Meu Super), a major Iberian health and wellness player (Wells, Arenal and Druni) and has several complementary growth businesses (Bagga, Go Natural and note!). It operates more than 1.550 stores and serves millions across multi-format brands.
Industry: Retail
Location: Portugal
Products: Google Cloud, Gemini, Compute Engine, Google Cloud VMware Engine, Google SecOps Enterprise Plus, Google Threat Intelligence
