Maritime Archaeology Trust Case Study
How Netmaker helped a maritime archaeology charity stay connected during the pandemic and beyond
The Londonier: A Historical Context
The Londonier was a steel hulled steam ship launched on August 28th, 1911. In 1918, the Londonier crossed the English Channel and was steering a course for The Needles, an English isle. A German submarine executed an attack by launching torpedoes, which struck the Londonier on the port side of the engine room. The vessel began to sink quickly. 13 men managed to reach the ship's boats and rafts, but 12 lost their lives.
Since then, the wreck has lied upright, 40m deep in water. No previous archaeological surveys had been made of the wreck site, until a project in conjunction with the Maritime Archaeology Trust was conducted to survey the site.
About the Maritime Archaeology Trust
Mission
This nonprofit charity works tirelessly with local communities around the world to gather and disseminate information from the underwater world, and shed light on the history beneath the waves.
Partnerships
The trust has worked with schools, UNESCO, and commercial entities alike to provide educational resources, assessments, and surveys.
Impact
Many surveys have been conducted, and continue to be conducted, by the Maritime Archaeology Trust every year, preserving underwater heritage for future generations.
The Challenge
Primarily an in-person organization, their work was heavily impacted by COVID-19. Staffers could not join on-site, and lost access to many of the resources they needed in order to perform their work, such as key files and databases maintained at offices, and cloud storage.
Brandon Mason, who leads all technological aspects of the charity, was looking for a solution that could give their staff access to the documents, files, and databases they needed.
"We're not an IT focused business, so we needed something easy to use that was reliable and stable. We tried lots of different things, including some VPN solutions like OpenVPN and Pritunl. However, the solutions were either too slow and sluggish, or difficult for users to maintain."
The Solution: Netmaker
That's when Brandon stumbled upon Netmaker.
"I loved the ease of configuration," says Brandon. "It was elegant, and had low overhead. I haven't encountered any other solutions that allow you to manage the configurations so easily, at any level that is required."
Results & Benefits
Seamless Remote Work
"One of the best things is just how you hardly notice it's there. You turn on your machine, and are immediately connected to the remote resources you need. It's extremely reliable."
Using Netmaker has enabled the team at Maritime Archaeology Trust to stay remote in the post-pandemic world, which has greatly increased their quality of life, and contributed to staff retention.
"Many of the staff have moved away from the office, but thanks to Netmaker, they are able to work from anywhere, which has allowed us to keep them on the team."
Improved Network Management
Beyond the value it has provided to the staff, it has also given Brandon an excellent advantage in managing networks at the charity.
"I really like the dashboard. It's a great place to log in and check on your networks. You can see all the traffic between the nodes in your networks, and it shows you where to go for different issues. Overall, things are very snappy, and cross platform, which is great, since we need it to work with Mac, Linux, Windows, and phones."
The team at Maritime Archaeology Trust now relies on Netmaker to maintain secure connections across their sites and cloud resources.
The Final Word
"It makes connections between our resources that live in the cloud, live in the office, and makes it seamless. It keeps connections alive, and keeps everything working together. It's the glue between our different environments."
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