American Red Cross, Nashville Area Chapter increases quality, cuts costs by choosing online backup
“Mozy is ahead of most other vendors as far as cost. But beyond that, its ease of use is something just as valuable – it translates into time.”
Located in the heartland of tornado country, the American Red Cross Nashville chapter knows preparation is essential. So when Michael Dodd joined the organization in mid 2008 as technology solutions manager, he knew the time-consuming, unreliable tape backup system had to go. The non-profit organization switched to online backup and now enjoys the peace of mind and ease of use offered by MozyPro.
With a regional chapter and six smaller chapters in surrounding areas, the American Red Cross has a strong presence in middle Tennessee, which means a large volume of data that needs to be kept safe. Technology Solutions Manager Michael Dodd is the lone man in charge of managing the Nashville area IT functions and used to spend a good part of each morning rotating tapes and monitoring log files to make sure the organization’s data was properly backed up.
When some data that had been outsourced for backup was moved in-house, the task and cost of tape backups became unfeasible. “It wasn’t in our budget to purchase a tape loader system,” Dodd said, “We were going through multiple tapes per night so I began looking into online backup options.”
Having been a MozyHome user for two years, Dodd knew Mozy offered a good self-managing product for home users, but wanted to look into all business options. After testing several online backup vendors, Mozy stood out the most.
“MozyPro makes it very clear which files are being backed up and when they are backed up,” Dodd said. “The automated reports Mozy sends me every morning make my job easier and allow me to focus on more important tasks for the organization.”
Saving time by using MozyPro allowed Dodd to shift his attention to future projects. The non-profit was able to realize a $20,000 savings over 12 months by allocating its time and budget to objectives other than tapes, and they’ve seen an overall 68 percent savings in backup costs. That’s good news for a non-profit on a tight, donor-only budget.
“Mozy is ahead of most other vendors as far as cost. But beyond that, its ease of use is something just as valuable—it translates into time. Nashville has a strong tornado season, and the Red Cross’ mission is all about prevention, preparedness, and response,” Dodd said. “So sending our tapes 40 miles away wasn’t as effective as having our data stored in the cloud, thousands of miles away at a secure site.”
Eliminating the tape system was just the beginning of the benefits Dodd has appreciated since choosing online backup with MozyPro. Data residing on Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL servers is easily backed up with desktop and laptop data. And as a tech person, Dodd paid close attention to the installation process and was pleased to find it simple, with wizard-driven capabilities and few screens.
Another major sell for Dodd was the automated e-mails that let him know how much data he is backing up, if he’s close to his quota, or needs more space. The flexibility offered by Mozy allows Dodd to back up different types of data in a granular manner and manage every detail of his account.
Having done a few restores with Mozy, Dodd said the process was a simple, three-minute procedure. He knows exactly where files are, and even different versions of files, which is something other products didn’t offer.
“I used to worry when people would ask me to pull a file from our backups,” Dodd said. “I would look at the tapes and think, ‘I hope the file is on that tape and the tape still works.’ I never really knew. But with Mozy I have peace of mind that our data is safe.”