Jakob Müller transitions to Nasuni and Azure from Windows file servers
About Jakob Müller Group
For more than 130 years, Jakob Müller Group has stood for Swiss precision in the tape and narrow textiles industry. The average consumer today is likely wearing fabrics with elements produced on the company’s machines, from automobile seat belts to clothing tags and other specialty textiles.Headquartered in Switzerland, Jakob Müller operates six manufacturing facilities and multiple sales and service locations worldwide. Like many manufacturers, the company relied on distributed Windows File Servers to manage and share data globally. As file sizes and volumes grew, this infrastructure became increasingly inefficient and costly to maintain.
The challenge
Jakob Müller’s IT team created scripts to copy files between sites, but users accessing data stored in distant regions faced long delays. Manufacturers must also contend with ransomware risk and ensure business continuity in the face of site-specific outages.CIO Michael Stöckli and his IT group turned to Netcloud AG, who recommended Nasuni.
“We saw quite fast that Nasuni would be a very good solution for us, both from the sync perspective and for ransomware recovery, business continuity, and management,” says Stöckli.
How Nasuni helped Jakob Müller Group
Nasuni simplified global data management through migration to Azure.
The company’s transition represented a major modernization effort and a unified solution for multiple challenges. Jakob Müller Group adopted Microsoft Azure Blob storage, moving its file data off Windows servers with guidance from the Nasuni team.“This was quite a large amount of data and some of our most important data, but the Nasuni team really guided us through the process… They made it easy,” Stöckli recalls.
Today, the company relies solely on the Nasuni File Data Platform. Virtual Nasuni Edge Appliances cache files locally across 14 global locations, while Azure Blob Storage provides secure, scalable cloud capacity. With Nasuni Continuous File Versioning®, the company eliminated separate backup systems and simplified global management.
Nasuni delivered a 33% reduction in storage and backup costs.
Thanks to Nasuni, Jakob Müller Group was able to reduce its backup storage footprint, cancel maintenance of a WORM storage volume, and drastically cut the cost of restoring data. When Stöckli added up these annual costs, he determined that the company’s initial Nasuni subscription was 33% lower.Nasuni enabled the retirement of 10 regional Windows File Servers.
Previously, Jakob Müller Group maintained ten Windows File Servers in various regions and needed to manage each one independently. Now IT can manage all of the virtual Nasuni Edge Appliances through a single management console.Nasuni provided rapid, reliable ransomware recovery.
Every enterprise is vulnerable to a ransomware attack, but Jakob Müller Group now has a reliable, testable recovery solution that has the capacity to restore millions of files within minutes. “If we are impacted by ransomware,” Stöckli says, “I know we will not lose any data, and that is the biggest point for me.”Nasuni accelerated file access for global users.
The company’s end users are now enjoying accelerated access to files and folders that were plagued by slow or failed syncs. Nasuni utilizes high-speed synchronization to ensure the most recent copy of each file is available in multiple locations. Users are working off the local appliance, not accessing files halfway across the world.Nasuni eliminated missing data and sync failures.
When the company relied on scripts to synchronize files, IT would often hear from users that they weren’t able to access key data. “We do not have any complaints that data are missing anymore,” Stöckli says. “In IT, if you don’t hear anything, that means it’s working.”“We do not have any complaints that data are missing anymore,” Stöckli says. “In IT, if you don’t hear anything, that means it’s working.”
Nasuni allowed for effortless, set-and-forget management.
“In the beginning, I had the console open almost every day,” Stöckli says. “Now it just runs. From the administration side, that’s very good for us, because we are a small team in Switzerland. We do not have the time to administer file servers in Brazil or India, move files from A to B, or control locks. It simply has to work, and Nasuni is really working.”Our needs are always changing, and it’s good to know that these options are there, and that Nasuni is really working to make the platform better.
The Nasuni difference
In addition to meeting Jakob Müller Group’s immediate requirements and reducing its costs, the Nasuni platform provides the company with long-term agility. The Ransomware Protection add-on service can be deployed at any time to strengthen the firm’s ability to detect, quarantine, and respond to attacks more quickly. Additionally, Nasuni Access Anywhere enables end users to access their files from any location.Nasuni empowers Jakob Müller Group with a modern file data platform that simplifies management, strengthens ransomware resilience, and enables global collaboration. By consolidating infrastructure, cutting costs, and improving performance, Jakob Müller Group achieved a future-ready foundation for innovation and growth.
Industry: Manufacturing
Cloud file storage: Nasuni
Object storage: Microsoft Azure
Use cases: NAS consolidation; Data protection
Benefits: Global file synchronization; 33% cost reduction; rapid ransomware recovery; simpler management; reliable business continuity