Mall of America drives digital transformation

Mall of America has deployed Rubrik to protect its mission-critical data and applications. Now, Mall of America (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 Microsoft Azure.

  • 4 years ago Posted in
Mall of America, located in Bloomington, Minnesota, is the largest mall in the United States. Since opening its doors in 1992, MOA has earned a reputation as a world-class 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.

“Mall of America’s number one priority is ensuring that our guests have an amazing experience on our property,” said Janette Smrcka, IT Director at Mall of America. “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, Mall of America struggled with a time-consuming legacy data management solution. With Rubrik’s simple, automated data management, MOA is spending 80% less time managing data backups, which translates to 52 days of added productivity per year. MOA can now 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, Mall of America is home to Nickelodeon Universe, a 7-acre indoor theme park. Every morning, MOA’s 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 MOA 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. Now, the team can easily 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 Chief Technology Officer at 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.”

Mall of America protects its 100% virtualized environment and mission-critical applications with Rubrik. Additional benefits include:

  • Seamless cloud archival and cost savings with Microsoft 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 immediate hard savings.
  • Rapid restores for streamlined upgrades: Mall of America’s previous backup solution hindered their “always on” mindset with slow restores and clunky system upgrades. Thanks to Rubrik’s unmatched speed and simplicity, MOA’s largest servers can be restored in just 30 minutes, giving IT admins back seven hours of their day.
  • Hyper-V integration: Rubrik easily navigated MOA’s existing Hyper-V infrastructure with its policy-driven intelligence.
  • Ease of use: Rubrik’s consumer-like interface allows the team to easily find and access data with confidence.
72% of employees are positive about returning to the office, but want better-equipped spaces for...
FTI Consulting, has released a study from its Strategic Communications segment that reveals the...
Leading Peruvian pharmacy chain improves assortment, space planning and analytic capabilities with...
Snowflake report unearths Python as the programming language of choice for AI development, while...
New Cisco Devices bring seamless collaboration to every corner of the office, providing customers...
Rosti Group reduces device downtime by more than four hours per device, per month and can now...
The joint venture, built on previous collaborative successes of its parent companies, aims to...
New research from Gamma reveals the tactics successful businesses are using to stay ahead, with...