WordFly Gains Fast, Reliable, and Secure Backup Storage with Quantum

From renowned opera houses and science museums to local theaters and zoos, organizations around the globe use the WordFly marketing platform to stay connected with their audience through digital messaging. The platform, which was built in collaboration with arts and cultural institutions, streamlines content creation and delivery: Clients log into the SaaS app, use templates to design campaigns, and easily manage delivery of messages.

For the WordFly IT team, a scalable and reliable storage environment is critical for retaining a growing collection of client data. “In addition to maintaining each client’s database, we store their files and images—which might range from photos of an opera performance to pictures of pandas,” says Michael Patrick, DevOps manager for WordFly. “Organizations send emails that link to those images, so we need to make sure the images can be displayed whenever emails are opened.”

Requiring More Reliable Backups and Faster Data Recovery
For several years, WordFly maintained a local disk-storage backup environment and also uploaded data to the cloud. But a few years ago, the IT team decided to make some changes to this architecture. “We needed to improve the speed and reliability of our backup environment,” says Patrick.

The team decided to keep the cloud backup as a secondary offsite copy. But they wanted to add an on-prem solution that would enable faster data recovery.

Enhancing the Backup Strategy with a Quantum Scalar i3 Tape Library
The WordFly team chose the Quantum Scalar i3 tape library, which they deployed in WordFly’s colocation facility. Augmenting the existing backup architecture with the tape library enables WordFly to recover backed up client data much more rapidly than downloading from the cloud.

The Scalar i3 tape library also provides simple capacity scaling for the future. “[W]ith the Quantum tape library, we know we can expand easily and cost-effectively as our client data grows,” says Patrick.

Avoiding Management Complexity
By choosing the Quantum tape library, the WordFly team has added a cost-effective, on-premises layer to its backup architecture without increasing management complexity. “The colocation site where the tape library lives is several states away from our team,” says Patrick. “But the build quality of the Quantum tape library means we don’t have to fly down to the data center for emergency fixes.”

Improving Backup Reliability and Enabling Rapid Recovery
With the Quantum solution in place, the long waits to recover data from cloud environments are a thing of the past. “We had one client blow up their database recently,” says Patrick. “With the Quantum tape library, we were able to go back a few days in the backups and restore client data easily.”

The WordFly team is now exploring additional unique Quantum Scalar capabilities to enhance protection of client data, including encryption and Quantum Active Vault. “Our clients can continue engaging their patrons and fans through digital messaging without having to worry about losing campaign data,” says Patrick.