Case Study: Lake Washington School District achieves lower backup costs and simpler data protection with Microsoft Azure hybrid cloud

School district develops hybrid cloud solution to cut costs, simplify backupa

Lake Washington School District, a K-12 school district in Washington state, faced the challenge of modernizing its aging and costly tape backup system. This system required significant manual effort, was unreliable, and would have cost over $200,000 to replace. Seeking a more efficient and secure method for data protection, the district partnered with Microsoft Corporation to implement a cloud-based solution.

Microsoft provided a hybrid cloud storage solution using Azure StorSimple. This allowed the district to keep active data on-premises while automatically archiving cooler data to the cloud. The results were immediate and significant: Microsoft's solution saved the district approximately $200,000 in hardware replacement costs and freed up several hours of staff time each week by eliminating manual backup tasks. Furthermore, storing data in Microsoft Azure provided enhanced disaster recovery and peace of mind through geo-replication and continuous cloud snapshots.

Lake Washington School District

Sally Askman

Director, Technology Operations