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AGU is a non-profit organization that supports 130,000 enthusiasts to experts worldwide in Earth and space sciences. It aims to advance geoscience through study, exploration and research covering everything from outer space to the inner core of Earth. By leveraging its broad and inclusive partnerships, the AGU aims to create solutions that are ethical and unbiased. It was founded in 1919 and is now based in Washington, D.C., in a net-zero energy renovated building.
AGU had an unwieldy Linux-based infrastructure that was failing to meet its needs. In addition, AGU had to support more than 70 WordPress sites and manage the aging tens of thousands of pieces of content. The current solution was unable to provide a personalized and responsive experience. In addition, updating web pages was neither quick nor easy for the content editors and the complex infrastructure was difficult to scale and lacked the flexibility that AGU required to fulfill its goals.
To improve the scalability and reliability of its IT infrastructure, a deep expertise in architectural best practices, performance monitoring and support for Sitecore was required. AGU needed help in optimizing the Sitecore platform on AWS to meet their specific needs and leverage all the appropriate capabilities to gain insights. Another requirement for AGU was a robust security solution to protect against cyberthreats so a pro-active approach to detecting potential cyberattacks was necessary to ensure threats are found and remediated quickly.
“We did a significant amount of research on many companies that provided hosting and knowledge around Sitecore. Rackspace Technology brought everything to the table that we were looking for,” said Michael McFadden, Manager, Digital Operations, AGU. “Our digital transformation journey had been underway for some time beginning with a migration to the AWS cloud. Rackspace Technology was chosen as a partner to complete the project.”
By working with Rackspace Technology, AGU condensed 70,000 pages into one content management system, making it easier to manage and monitor. With the latest Sitecore capabilities the user experience has improved, along with the availability of analytics and insights to help the AGU to continue to evolve their organization. Development staging is now a part of the highly available production environment. Updating web pages is quick and easy providing flexibility to the content editors.
The on-time completion of the migration then led AGU to bolster the security of its online assets with Rackspace Managed Security Services, ensuring that their IT infrastructure is protected against cyberthreats. The collaborative partnership with Rackspace Technology continues through the provision of 24x7x365 support, platform management and the sharing of best practices.
“The AGU had an unwieldy Linux-based infrastructure that was failing to meet its needs. In addition, the AGU had to support more than 70 WordPress sites and manage the aging tens of thousands of pieces of content,” said Jeff DeVerter, CTO Solutions at Rackspace Technology. “The new site enabled the AGU to deliver its annual conference completely online with seamless hosting of 20,000 presentation submissions before the event and 25,000 attendees at the event – scalability ensured success.”
