Entre Technologies Helps Preserve Crucial History with Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage

As a company with a long history in tech development, Entre Technologies understands what it takes to overcome obstacles for their customers’ best interests.  

For more than 30 years, Entre has provided sales, consulting and expertise on technology products and services—from desktops and data center networking to full-scale deployments, software, wireless and other IT initiatives—for customers of all sizes. 

Remaining nimble and flexible while adapting to meet evolving technology needs is key to Entre’s customer satisfaction goals. Which is why, when a customer was struggling with its storage solution, Entre turned to Wasabi. 

Limited bandwidth causes data transfer hurdle   

Entre recently took on a cultural center as a managed service client. The cultural center is focused on preserving Yiddish-language books and film, with more than a million volumes that celebrate and further the understanding of Jewish history and identity.  

“The center has an important mission. They’re collecting Yiddish materials, but they’re also taking oral histories, talking to people who’ve survived the Holocaust, sharing their experiences and what they learned,” said John Drake, Account Manager at Entre Technologies. “The amount of material they have and their ensuing data footprint is massive.”  

The center was struggling to create a disaster recovery plan that would preserve its critical, historical materials with backups safeguarding against potential data loss.  

“We found out their backup solution was basically a homegrown, quasi-datacenter,” Drake said. “We told them: We’re going to put you into something much more modern and easy to use.” 

Entre turned to Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage with the Veeam Backup, but realized the bigger problem was getting all of the center’s data out of its onsite storage and into the Wasabi cloud. 

“We learned really quickly that bandwidth at the cultural center was very limited. The internet was too slow to take on massive data transfers to the cloud. We were trying to move all these huge audio and video files over a file server that couldn’t handle it because of how terrible the internet was,” Drake said. 

Wasabi Ball makes secure file uploads a snap    

The initial upload of the center’s entire data footprint was simply taking too long, cutting into the organization’s disaster recovery initiative. “I think the first whack we had at it took a month to upload,” Drake said. 

During that time, Entre asked for a faster solution from Wasabi, which recommended the Wasabi Ball Transfer Appliance. Wasabi Ball lets users move large datasets to Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage quickly, conveniently, and cost-effectively, addressing common challenges associated with large-scale data transfers by eliminating the high network costs and long transfer times often associated with moving large data amounts over the internet.  

The transfer appliance is shipped to the data site, where it’s plugged into the network. It copies data and is returned to Wasabi, which securely uploads the data to the customer’s cloud storage account.  

“Having that option available was a game changer for us,” Drake said. “Offsite backups can be tricky for clients with large data footprints. But with the Wasabi Ball, we were able to take large chunks of data to the cloud without having to worry about the internet messing up clients’ bandwidth.” 

“Wasabi stepped up to the plate and helped us knock this one out of the park.”  

The Wasabi Ball transfer appliance ensured Entre could meet its client’s needs quickly, securely, and safely. “Having that seeded data was extremely important for us to help the center meet its goals. It spoke to our mission of always providing customers with excellent service,” Drake said. 

That turnaround time was huge for Entre, he added. “The center was really concerned about the sensitivity of its data and wanted to know it was safely backed up. Knowing their data was protected off site in case anything happened to their physical location was a big relief.”

Going forward, Entre plans to use the Wasabi Ball for any other client with tricky data transfer and security needs.

“Any new client coming in where we see these conditions—large data footprint, lousy internet service—Wasabi Ball will be our go-to strategy,” Drake said.

Wasabi’s constant support throughout the file transfer process made the experience even better, Drake added.

“It wasn’t like, we got this ball with a bunch of data on it that you guys dumped into the cloud then walked away,” he said. “You were always Johnny-on-the-spot: the constant touch points from Wasabi to ensure that everything completed correctly, making sure we were okay and had everything we needed. It felt like someone was there watching behind the scenes. We were thoroughly supported, left and right.”

“Wasabi has been outstanding,” Drake continued. “The Wasabi Ball and everything that went along with it—what you guys are willing to go through for us, and provide that back end support was fantastic. Thumbs up across the board.”