Sophia School Corporation overhauls backup and disaster recovery plan to safeguard critical data and maintain operations with Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage

BOSTON & TOKYO: Wasabi Technologies, the Hot Cloud Storage company, today announced leading educational institution, Sophia School Corporation, modernized its data protection with Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage. Sophia School Corporation operates one of Japan’s oldest universities, Sophia University, founded in 1913, making it imperative to implement a reliable data protection strategy. To provide its staff with more flexible work arrangements and ensure business-critical data is protected with an offsite backup, Sophia School Corporation transferred over 50TB to Wasabi.

"We were in a situation where we could be targeted at any time, and implementing remote backup had always been a challenge,” said Koji Matsuda, senior manager of the Academic Information Bureau's Information Systems Office, Sophia School Corporation. “This project to overhaul the entire staff environment came at the perfect time, and we were determined to make it happen as a key security enhancement."

To better guarantee data used by Sophia School Corporation’s staff and management would be protected in the event of a large-scale disaster and ransomware attacks, the severity of which has worsened each year, data was transferred to Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage at an offsite location. This helps make the possibility of files being compromised less likely. Additionally, Wasabi's object lock feature enables the creation of immutable backups that cannot be overwritten or deleted, which was crucial for more robust ransomware protection. By making backups immutable, it prevents ransomware from encrypting the data. Veeam backup and replication software was used to manage moving the data to Wasabi, enabling detection of data differences to avoid redundant transfers. The transfer of Sophia School Corporation’s file server backups from their on-campus network to Wasabi’s secure, high-performance cloud storage was done via SINET (Science Information NETwork), a high-speed, secure academic information network in Japan.

“Educational institutions today face growing cybersecurity threats alongside increasing pressure to ensure business continuity, and tight budgets shouldn’t limit their ability to implement enterprise-grade data protection,” said Aki Wakimoto, Japan country manager, Wasabi Technologies. "For institutions with a long and distinguished history like Sophia School Corporation, protecting academic and administrative data is an IT priority. By leveraging Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage over SINET for a secure, offsite backup, Sophia School Corporation has strengthened its resilience against ransomware and natural disasters while staying within a defined budget, and we're proud to support their mission of long-term data protection.”

"Even when we had backups before, I always worried if they were truly reliable,” said Koichi Aoto - administrative director, Academic Information Bureau, Information Systems Office, Sophia School Corporation. “With Wasabi enabling remote backup, even if the file server is attacked, we now have a clear path to recover from the backup data, eliminating some of the risk. In that sense, the mental burden on the Information Systems Office staff has been significantly eased."

Furthermore, Wasabi’s transparent and predictable pricing structure with no data transfer fees is important for educational institutions operating on fixed budgets. Sophia School Corporation has also seen the added benefit of faster data restores with Wasabi. The file server backup process takes only 20 minutes, and in the event of full data restoration, recovery is projected to take less than one week.

"For this file server backup, the most critical factor was staying within the budget allocated from the overall project,” said Hiroji Nakajima, team leader at the Information Systems Office, Academic Information Bureau, Sophia School Corporation. “Wasabi was the only cloud storage solution that fit within that range. Additionally, considering our planned five-year usage period, the ability to lock in the total cost for five years upfront through a single contract was a significant advantage."

About Wasabi Technologies

Recognized as one of the technology industry’s fastest growing companies, Wasabi is on a mission to store the world's data by making cloud storage affordable, predictable and secure. With Wasabi, visionary companies gain the freedom to use their data whenever they like without being hit with unpredictable fees or vendor lock-in. Instead, they’re free to build best-of-breed solutions with the industry’s fastest-growing ecosystem of independent cloud application partners. Customers and partners all over the world trust Wasabi to help them put their data to work so they can unlock their full potential. Visit wasabi.com to learn more.

Fonte: Business Wire