We would not have been able to meet our backup goals if not for Wasabi’s low price. S3 compatibility also allowed us to tailor our solution to fit our needs.

— John Harris, Director of Information Technology at Russell Sage Colleges.

Overview

The 3,000 students at Russell Sage College pursue bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees on campuses in Albany, New York and Troy, New York. RSC is a not-for-profit organization, making cost a limiting factor when choosing IT solutions.

Business Challenge: Cost-Effective Offsite Backups

Managing the data of thousands of students and faculty across two campuses is no easy feat. The Russell Sage Colleges’ storage array is hosted locally and the IT team was looking to increase their data security by adding an offsite backup location. Being a small, not-for-profit institution, Sage’s data solution would need to put cost savings first. “We are constantly looking for ways to stretch our budget,” said John Harris, Director of Information Technology and Network Services at Russell Sage Colleges.

Solution: Veeam + rClone + Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage

The team at Russell Sage Colleges uses Veeam to perform daily backups of their virtual environments. These backups are saved to local storage and replicated to Wasabi using rClone, an open-source cloud syncing program. This strategy allows Russell Sage Colleges to achieve their goal of affordably storing data offsite. Wasabi’s highly secure storage is 80% less expensive than Amazon S3, and Wasabi’s lack of egress or API charges also keeps costs low. Together with Veeam’s affordable backup and rClone’s no-cost cloud sync, the Russell Sage Colleges team has built an inexpensive backup solution that doesn’t sacrifice performance power.

Results: Affordable Data Redundancy

For an organization like the Russell Sage Colleges, a comprehensive backup solution might not be attainable if not for Wasabi’s low prices. “With Wasabi we have saved a significant amount of money while not sacrificing the quality of the service,” said Harris. Wasabi provides cloud storage service that is faster than competing services while remaining far cheaper. Utilizing similarly inexpensive (or, in the case of rClone, completely free) software like Veeam backup stretched the team’s dollar even further.

Adding Wasabi to their backup strategy also afforded them peace of mind. Copying data into the cloud brings the Russell Sage Colleges team greater redundancy and therefore greater security. Taking data offsite is a strong defense against ransomware and other disaster scenarios that could cost the organization thousands or result in data loss. The Russell Sage Colleges’ solution is a more comprehensive data management strategy that gives the Russell Sage Colleges greater overall redundancy at a low price point.