Mall of America Deploys Rubrik

Rubrik, Inc. announced that Mall of America (MOA) has deployed Rubrik to protect its mission-critical data and applications.

MOA is able to focus more resources on digital transformation initiatives that optimize employee efficiency and enhance the overall guest experience. Rubrik has also enabled MOA to advance its cloud-first initiative with data archival to Azure.

MOA, located in Bloomington, MN, is the largest mall in the US. Since opening its doors in 1992, it has earned a reputation as a shopping, dining, and entertainment destination. It welcomes an average of 40 million people from around the world and generates nearly $2 billion in economic impact annually.

“MOA’s number one priority is ensuring that our guests have an amazing experience on our property,” said Janette Smrcka, IT director, MOA. “IT plays a key role in creating the special moments that earn our customer’s loyalty. Our team is constantly reevaluating our processes for opportunities to increase efficiencies and innovate. We’ve never been a company that sits still; having partners, like Rubrik that think outside the box helps us move even faster.“

Prior to adopting Rubrik, MOA struggled with a time-consuming legacy data management solution. Now with simple, automated data management, it is spending 80% less time managing backups, which translates to 52 days of added productivity per year.

MOA can focus on optimizing IT processes to deliver more value to the business, from proactively preventing against data loss by implementing encrypted email capabilities to enabling employees to remotely access their applications.

In addition to over 520 stores, MOA is home to Nickelodeon Universe, a 7-acre indoor theme park. Every morning, its maintenance and operational staff conduct a safety check of the park’s rides, a process that was completed on paper over the past two decades.

The IT team’s increase in productivity with Rubrik has provided them time to develop and launch a new internal application that performs that check electronically. The team can report on that data and staff can get back on the floor with guests faster.

“Gaining and retaining consumer attention in today’s incredibly competitive retail market is more difficult than ever,” said Arvind Nirthrakashyap, co-founder and CTO, Rubrik. “Rubrik allows MOA to spend more time on driving innovation and less on IT maintenance. With our cloud data management platform, companies have peace of mind that their data is protected and can focus on delivering memorable customer experiences.“

MOA protects its 100% virtualized environment and mission-critical applications with Rubrik.

Additional benefits include: 

• Cloud archival and cost savings with Azure: Rubrik’s native integration with Azure ensures maximum storage efficiency to scale MOA’s cloud footprint. This has allowed the company to migrate off tape, eliminating unnecessary overhead and leading to hard savings.
• Rapid restores for streamlined upgrades: MOA’s previous backup solution hindered their always on mindset with slow restores and clunky system upgrades. Thanks to Rubrik’s speed and simplicity, largest servers can be restored in 30 minutes, giving IT admins back seven hours of their day.
• Hyper-V integration: Rubrik navigated MOA’s existing Hyper-V infrastructure with its policy-driven intelligence.
• Ease of use: Rubrik’s consumer-like interface allows the team to find and access data with confidence.

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