The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has important work to do. The non-profit leaps into action when tragedy strikes, helping victims of the earthquakes in Japan and Haiti, or lending a hand to those devastated by the violence in Syria.
It has lots of on-going work as well, protecting a half million children with vaccines, and giving nearly two million people clean water.
IRC prefers focusing its full attention on those in need, rather than keeping its computing infrastructure up and running, an infrastructure that has to support operations in over 40 countries.
That’s why the charity turned to MSP Datapipe. One of the biggest burdens is the e-mail system, straining under the load of some 6,000 mailboxes. And that is the problem Datapipe solved with its Exchange-as-a-Service tool.
This Exchange-based service is fully managed, and is monitored full time, as in 24x7x365.
The last thing IRC wants to do is lose communications during a crisis. Besides monitoring, the e-mail is supported with patches, diagnostics and upgrades. The MSP also handles administration and migration.
The on-premises Exchange system had been in IRC’s Manhattan offices, prime real estate to be sure. Not only does infrastructure take up expensive room, it sucks up loads of electricity. That’s why more and more Metro-based organizations turn to the cloud and managed services when their data centers run out of room.
IRC also tapped Datapipe for disaster recovery, and to handle its database clusters and VMware installations.
IRC didn’t give up 100 percent control. The non-profit still self-manages its network and main bits of software.
Not losing communication during the switchover was critical. "Our biggest concern was downtime, so any migration plans had to be handled carefully," said Michael Boeglin, director of Global Infrastructure. "We're not just dealing with migrating one office, but also remote locations backed by sometimes intermittent satellite link communications. Datapipe was the only one to guarantee minimal downtime throughout our upgrade – and they delivered."
The managed services lets IRC get back to what really matters. "For us, every minute of every day is consumed with helping those in need. Datapipe has effectively taken the IT burden off our plate – letting us stick to what we do best – saving lives," Boeglin concluded. “Our IT infrastructure just wasn’t built for what we were asking. We wanted this small, dedicated staff to not only service headquarters – but to deliver IT services to some of the most remote locations on the planet. With so much at stake, it just didn’t make any sense to rely on this aging infrastructure.”
The IRC story caught the attention of ComputerWorld, which just granted it a 2013 Computerworld Honors Laureate award, which is given in cases where technology provides for humanitarian good.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
