Customer Case Study: Cristie Nordic

Leading European Cloud Provider Meets Modern Workload and Ransomware Protection Needs with Cloudian Object Storage

With more than 20 years of technology and consulting experience as a managed service provider, Cristie Nordic is one of Europe’s leading data storage and protection experts. In response to growing client demand for more advanced solutions with greater scalability and security, Cristie Nordic developed a new service offering combining Cloudian object storage and Rubrik backup software. Capitalizing on Cloudian’s limitless scalability, ransomware protection and support for modern applications, the new offering has given Cristie Nordic customers a next-generation foundation built on S3-compatible storage.

Need for More Modern Storage

Founded in 1997, Cristie Nordic specialises in data protection, data storage and data archiving, providing a suite of services and solutions to customers throughout Northern and Central Europe—from small businesses to large enterprises, as well as other MSPs. With a key focus on data availability, its offerings are built on a deep technical knowledge and are supported by high- level partnerships with leading IT companies.

Over the past few years, Cristie Nordic has seen its customers’ needs evolve as their data volumes continued to grow and the strategic value of that data became more apparent. These customers want storage solutions that are both highly scalable and cost-effective, provide ready access to data and can meet increasingly stringent security and data protection requirements, including protection against ransomware attacks. At the same time, they don’t want to have to deploy separate solutions for traditional and modern applications.

Recognizing that its existing storage service offerings were unable to keep up with their clients’ evolving needs, Cristie Nordic decided to develop a new data protection service based on Cloudian’s HyperStore object storage platform. The new offering, called CLOUDBRIK, combines HyperStore and Rubrik backup software in a managed service that can be used at any destination—from on-premises data centers to remote or branch offices (ROBO) to multi-cloud environments.

“Other storage vendors we considered were strong in only one dimension, but Cloudian was strong across all the key criteria we were seeking,” says Christian Petersson, Solution Enabler Influencer and Technical Expert at Cristie Nordic.

Scalable Storage with Ransomware Protection

Today Cristie Nordic has a petabyte of HyperStore deployed across multiple clients, and it has proven to be an ideal storage foundation.

“With other object storage solutions, you’re forced to purchase more capacity than often needed as a starting point, but HyperStore allows you to begin with just three nodes,” says Petersson. “Then, as more capacity is needed, you simply add nodes, up to an exabyte without interruption. And you can scale without additional backup licenses, which significantly reduces the total cost of ownership.”

HyperStore also provides robust data protection with S3 Object Lock, a feature that protects users from ransomware by letting them make backup data unchangeable. This prevents cyber criminals from deleting or encrypting the data, thereby rendering ransomware ineffective. As a result, the data can be quickly and easily recovered in the event of a ransomware attack, without having to pay ransom.

Another key benefit for Cristie Nordic has been HyperStore’s multi-tenancy, which provides individual management domains and namespaces within a shared cluster, including in multi-cloud environments.

Future Opportunities Enabled by S3 Compatibility

Looking forward, Cristie Nordic sees an opportunity to use Cloudian for more than just data protection and archive.

“As clients discover the full costs of public cloud, they often come to us asking how to get started with S3 applications on-premises and how best to support those applications,” explains Petersson. “With HyperStore’s fully native S3 compatibility, we have the ability to deliver an excellent solution, including giving our MSP clients the foundation for new S3-based service offerings. ”

In addition, Cloudian’s Kubernetes S3 Operator will allow Cristie Nordic’s customers to access storage from their Kubernetes-based applications, providing all the benefits of HyperStore in a containerised environment.

“Our customers come to us with a wide range of different problems and challenges – from achieving data resilience in increasingly digital environments to providing a storage solution that will enable truly modern workflows, ” says Petersson. “With Cloudian, we’re now able to meet all these needs, making us a more valued provider and expanding our market opportunity. That’s why we expect it to be a core part of our offerings for many years to come.”