For Joel Wagener, Director of IT at AIBS, simplicity
is an important feature he looks for in software
applications to use in his organization. So maybe
it’s not unexpected that Joel chose Backblaze for
Business to back up AIBS’s staff computers.
According to Joel, “It just works.”
AIBS started using Backblaze for Business Cloud Backup several years
ago to make sure that the organization’s data was backed up and
protected from accidental loss or computer failure. AIBS is based in
Washington, D.C., but is a virtual organization, with staff dispersed
around the United States. AIBS needed a backup solution that worked
anywhere a staff member was located, and was easy to use, as well. Joel
has made Backblaze a default part of the configuration management for
all the AIBS endpoints, which in their case are exclusively Macintosh.
AIBS (The American Institute of Biological
Sciences) is a non-profit scientific association
dedicated to advancing biological research
and education. Founded in 1947 as part of
the National Academy of Sciences, AIBS later
became independent and now has over 100
member organizations. AIBS works to ensure
that the public, legislators, funders, and the
community of biologists have access to and
use information that will guide them in
making informed decisions about matters
that require biological knowledge.
We started using Backblaze on a
single computer in 2014, then not
too long after that decided to deploy
it to all our endpoints
- Joel Wagener
“We use Groups to oversee backups and for central billing,
but we let each user manage their own computer and restore
files on their own if they need to.”
“Backblaze stays out of the way until we need it. It’s fairly
lightweight, and I appreciate that it’s simple,” says Joel. “It
doesn’t throttle backups and the price point is good. I have
family members who use Backblaze, as well.”
Backblaze’s Groups feature permits an organization to
oversee and manage the user accounts, including restores, or
let users handle that themselves. This flexibility fits a variety of
organizations, where various degrees of oversight or independence
are desirable. The finance and HR departments could
manage their own data, for example, while the rest of the
organization could be managed by IT. All groups can be
billed centrally no matter how other functionality is set up.
“We use Groups to oversee backups and for central billing,
but we let each user manage their own computer and restore
files on their own if they need to.”
“If we have a computer that needs repair, we can put a loaner computer in that
person’s hands and they can immediately get the data they need directly from the
Backblaze cloud backup, which is really helpful. When we get the original computer
back from repair we can do a complete restore and return it to the user all
ready to go again. When we’ve needed restores, Backblaze has been reliable.”
