Challenge
Replicating files for durability, and again across sites for collaboration, had become increasingly difficult to manage, and was limiting business growth.
Solution
CloudFS allowed Packers Plus to realize their cloud-first goals, providing a simpler way to manage data and empowering global collaboration in one elegant solution.
Industry
Cloud
Meet Packers Plus, a Calgary-based oil and gas services company that manufactures oil completions technologies. Driven to create advanced technology to optimize well stimulation, Packers Plus provides the tools that go into oil wells once they’ve been drilled in order to deliver results around the world.
As a company working to drive innovation in the industry, Packers Plus was looking to make the move toward cloud technology in order to propel its business further into the digital age. Currently, the company has a limited number of offices scattered across North America as well as locations in Canada, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai.
When Packers Plus began exhausting their on-premise storage and their existing solutions no longer enabled extensive collaboration across offices, they knew it was time to look for a new solution. With approximately 450 employees and the need for a cloud-first solution, Senior Infrastructure Architect Jared Gudnason turned to Panzura to help provide a remedy to its storage problem.
The global collaboration and the whole concept of multiple nodes all backing onto the same single source of truth was all very appealing, which was ultimately what led us down the road to Panzura.
Storage Challenges and Unworkable Collaboration
Prior to the implementation of CloudFS, Packers Plus was struggling with the storage capacity of their on-premise infrastructure. With over half of Packer’s storage space being consumed by SMB data, Gudnason found himself in a position where he would either have to purchase additional on-premise storage or look for an alternate solution.
Looking towards the future, Gudnason was in search of a solution that would help Packers Plus on their continued journey to the cloud. They had been using Windows servers and Distributed File System Replication (DFSR) to replicate and protect files between offices.
However, the on-premise storage replication was difficult to manage given the sheer volume of their data. Plus, Gudnason knew that the company would eventually expand its manufacturing capabilities beyond its existing locations, so a solution with global collaboration potential was ideal for business growth.
Reducing the On-Premise Footprint and Encourages Global Collaboration
When searching for a fix to their storage problem, Packers Plus explored a variety of both on-premise and cloud solutions. Some of these solutions only included a single node, which didn’t really allow for global collaboration. Its journey with Panzura began when Packers Plus looked for a backup appliance that would enable it to maintain more historical data.
While advising a neighboring company on different types of backup appliances, Packers Plus came across Panzura.
What was it about this solution that caught Gudnason’s eye? He realized that Panzura not only provided an elegant, scalable solution to the company’s storage problem, but also removed a large pressure on Packers Plus’ backup solution.
Panzura also allowed for global collaboration, a unique feature that Gudnason didn’t find elsewhere. With Panzura CloudFS, Packers Plus was able to replace its legacy system, reducing its on-premise storage footprint by about 50%, and enjoy pay-as-you-go scalability.
Benefits: Building a Collaborative Roadmap and Scaling for the Future
Since Packers Plus implemented CloudFS, it now has greater flexibility as a result of its independence from physical data centers. Financially, CloudFS allows Packers Plus to infinitely scale and enjoy cost savings since it is no longer spending extra money on data center infrastructure.
From a future-looking perspective, Packers Plus can expand its business processes to other locations as its manufacturing sites continue to grow. Panzura resolves the file locking problem that occurs with multiple remote users working on the same project at the same time. CloudFS provides global file locking, so engineers at Packers Plus can enjoy collaborative productivity and a single source of truth for all of their data.
CloudFS with Global Read/Write protection ensures that multiple users can safely work on files within the same project without fear of stepping on each other. Copying files is no longer necessary, so everyone knows that they’re always working on the most recently updated files.