Create Group benefits from ultra-scalable storage and ensures business continuity with Synology Solutions

As a digital agency, digital information is essential for Create Group's employees. With staff generating and working daily with vast amounts of digital marketing content, the agency's data storage needs were growing at an unprecedented rate. Their storage use was 300 TB, and they projected that in the next three to four years that figure would exceed one petabyte. With this looming storage need, it was clear that Create Group needed to scale up.

Create Group valued their existing deployment for its dependability and ease of use. Create IT had rolled out this data solution using solutions from Synology that used an RS2421RP and an RS818+ for most storage and backups. With their experience, they already knew how simple it was to scale with Synology's systems. So when Create IT was tasked with growing their deployment to the petabyte scale, Synology, their partner in data for more than 10 years, was naturally their first choice.

Create IT selected Synology's newly launched HD6500 as Create Group's next data storehouse. Boasting 60 bays in a 4U rackmount enclosure and support for up to 300 drives when fully expanded, it was precisely what the agency needed for a petabyte-scale file server.

Create Group uses the HD6500's file server capability to store and work on many of their client projects. Its storage capacity currently exceeds 150 TB, a figure that is growing steadily, and they are able to scale as high as 4.7 PB with the HD6500 using the optional RX6022sas expansion units.

Create Group's digital professionals are heavy users of cloud services. As Create IT advised, they use Synology's unlimited, license-free Active Backup for Microsoft 365 to keep their 300+ users' data securely backed up on site. This data includes over 1300 email accounts, 50 Teams channels, more than 560 OneDrive accounts, and over 190 SharePoint accounts.

This proactive approach to business continuity helps Create Group safeguard their essential SaaS data. As an added bonus, simple mistakes such as unintentional deletion or modification are easily corrected by individual users through Synology's Active Backup for Microsoft 365 portal, a self-service web portal that simplifies file restoration.

Data integrity is a serious matter for Create IT. As such, they follow the 3-2-1 backup strategy to effectively safeguard the data on Create Group's HD6500.

As the first part of this approach, they've repurposed their RS2421RP+ to serve as an on-site storage destination for automated, hourly snapshots using Snapshot Replication, Synology's integrated tool for creating and managing data snapshots. In case of unforeseen disaster, this gives them the ability to restore their data with only minimal disruption.

As a second backup measure, they've moved their RS818+ to an off-site data center, repurposing it to store daily snapshots. Using this strategy with their Synology infrastructure gives Create IT a high degree of redundancy and allows them to guarantee data integrity and availability for Create Group. And as there are no additional licensing costs with Synology's Snapshot Replication software, Create IT's services remain cost effective and scalable.

The integrated data management solutions from Synology have enabled Create IT to scale their deployment while also staying well protected:

• Petabyte-scale storage empowers future business growth with better client service

• Active Backup for Microsoft 365 protects SaaS accounts with on-premises backups at no additional cost

• Active Backup for Microsoft 365 Portal reduces IT expenses by giving individual users the ability to self-correct accidental file deletions or modifications

• Snapshot Replication provides superior on-premises and off-site redundancy with the option for rapid data restoration