Geiger Ready-Mix (Geiger) specializes in the manufacture and distribution of ready mix concrete, cement and other building materials. Before implementing Storj, Geiger was using TrueNAS and Veeam for backups and wanted to complement their on premise solution with a full 3-2-1 backup plan following disaster recovery best practices. Geiger needed a high-performance, cost-effective, and secure cloud storage solution. Their technology partners recommended Storj as it met all their criteria and provided a streamlined, efficient path to transition to a distributed storage network.
Before adopting Storj, Geiger’s previous backup system was tied to onsite active directories, which exposed them to security vulnerabilities. Furthermore, the outdated backup system was doing 15-minute backup cycles that were unnecessary and costly.
“If we were to have a ransomware attack, a bad actor could access both sites of our backup,” explains Josh Herr, IT Director, Geiger Ready-Mix. “Having an active directory integrated storage frame in two locations with the same logins presented a big vulnerability.”
Geiger needed to determine the best cloud storage match for their evolving needs. Josh spent the last 15 yrs as a storage engineer, and understood that cloud offerings were ideal for fluctuating content loads. He also knew that Geiger's active data sets would be variable in size and appreciated the fact that on-prem was not an ideal solution. The pay as you go approach with Storj and its inherent affordability together with high-performance, security and sustainability, was very appealing, allowing him to continuously scale.
Geiger evaluated cloud storage from Azure and AWS but found Storj was an easier, better, more resilient and cost effective solution and Storj’s recognition by Veeam with Object-Ready Status gave Geiger additional confidence in choosing Storj.
“The biggest benefit we expected was simplicity - not having multiple frames replicating to each other,” says Josh on the benefits of partnering with Storj.
Geiger also did more internal operations analysis with an outside consulting firm to examine the efficiencies of switching to Storj.
“We were able to analyze investment, costs and value of the Storj approach for backup versus our old approach. We are very pleased with the performance, reliability, cost-efficiency and security that Storj's architecture presents inherently in its offering.”
In addition to solving Geiger’s challenges around cost and security, the Storj distributed architecture also aligned with Geiger’s sustainability goals. By reducing the need for additional on-premises hardware and lowering energy consumption through its efficient design, Storj helped Geiger minimize its environmental footprint.
The Storj distributed architecture, ongoing innovation, security, performance, cost-efficiency and environmental benefits solved Geiger’s challenges and strengthened Geiger’s position for the future.
