Berry College Cuts Cloud Costs in Half with Wasabi
Berry College moved their backups offsite to enhance data security and support disaster recovery, significantly reducing storage costs with a Wasabi and Veeam solution.
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50% Lower
annual cloud storage costs
45 Days
longer retention at half the cost
Increased Resilience
immutability & bucket replication
Overview
Berry College in Northwest Georgia is a leading liberal arts institution touting the largest college campus in the world, spanning approximately 27,000 acres.
With a diverse academic portfolio, the college faced challenges managing backups for its critical on-prem servers. For added redundancy, the servers needed a cloud target to copy backups to. The college also needed to back up Office 365 outside its Microsoft ecosystem.
INDUSTRY:
Higher Education
USE CASE:
Archiving
Backup & Recovery
Cyber Resilience
Disaster Recovery
Challenges
Berry College’s previous data infrastructure relied on local HPE ShareEasy servers for backups, which posed significant limitations in terms of redundancy and scalability.
As the college’s data needs grew, so did the challenges associated with this setup, prompting a search for a more robust and cost-effective solution.
Rising cloud costs
Berry IT found traditional cloud solutions (like Microsoft Azure) too expensive and limited in terms of the scalability they needed.
Data safety risks
Backups on local servers without replication opened the college to vulnerabilities in the event of a cyber incident or natural disaster.
Inefficient data management
Berry IT struggled with backing up Office 365 data, particularly OneDrive and Teams files, and needed a solution that didn't require additional on-campus storage.
Wasabi’s price point is way better. The limitations are not there and the scalability is. It's less complicated to deal with and you don't have all the different tiers of licensing and things that you do with Azure.
– Jason Murphine
Director of Information Technology, Berry College
We diversified regions where our data was sitting in case any one area of the country was impacted by something, it wouldn’t prevent us from getting to our data.
– Jason Murphine
Director of Information Technology, Berry College
Wasabi and Veeam deliver a smooth integration to cloud-based backups. We can efficiently back up critical Office 365 data while maintaining quick access for recovery, ensuring operational resilience in times of need.
– Jason Murphine
Director of Information Technology, Berry College
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Solution
Berry College now stores their backups across 2 offsite storage regions with Wasabi and seamlessly integrates with Veeam for enhanced data protection and management.
This new infrastructure not only reduced costs but also provided the college with the scalability and security they needed to effectively manage their growing data stores.
Key Features
Backup & Recovery
Transitioned from local backups to a cloud solution with Wasabi for cost efficiency and increased storage capacity
Cyber Resilience
Implemented immutable backups to protect against data corruption and ensure compliance with cybersecurity insurance requirements
Disaster Recovery
Utilizes replication across two different geographical locations to safeguard data against regional disasters
Results
Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage significantly improved Berry College’s data management strategy. The college not only achieved substantial cost savings but also enhanced their data protection measures, ensuring a more resilient IT infrastructure.
Annual savings — Berry College realized a 50% reduction in cloud storage costs, allowing for better allocation of IT resources.
Increased data retention — The college now maintains replicated backups for 45 days—a longer retention period than estimated with Azure, which was double the price—ensuring they can quickly recover critical data when needed.
Enhanced security — With immutable backups, Berry College is better protected against data corruption and cyber threats, providing peace of mind for their IT team.
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