In the fast-paced world of moving and relocation, timing is everything. National Van Lines (NVL), an employee-owned company with operations across 48 states and beyond, prided itself on seamless service, whether relocating families or businesses. But in recent years, NVL faced a major roadblock—frequent and lengthy power outages in its home base of Chicago. These outages left its servers offline for days, stalling critical operations and putting their business continuity at risk.
Beyond unreliable power, NVL also struggled to maintain a reliable disaster recovery plan. The company relied on physical tapes for backups—an outdated solution that offers little protection when outages occur. With an increasingly remote workforce, NVL needed more than just a quick fix. They needed a resilient cloud solution that would protect their operations and keep their employees connected, no matter where they were working.
NVL turned to IBM and IBM Business Partner Mainline to find the right solution—one that would not only keep their systems running but also provide a flexible and scalable environment for the future. Enter IBM® Power® Virtual Server, a cloud-based platform that offers the reliability and performance NVL needed to weather almost any storm. By migrating their critical workloads to the IBM hybrid cloud, NVL gained access to real-time replication and fast recovery through IBM Cloud® Object Storage and Precisely Assure MIMIX.
Mainline’s professional services guided NVL through every step of the transformation, providing hands-on education and expertise, ensuring the migration was seamless. With IBM Power Virtual Server, NVL now had the infrastructure to help protect against future outages, allowing the company to focus on what it does best—keeping people and businesses on the move.
The results were immediate and impressive. With their operations running on IBM Power Virtual Server, NVL eliminated the need for on-premises infrastructure and physical tape backups, significantly reducing costs. Most importantly, NVL’s disaster recovery times improved dramatically—what used to take days, now only took hours.
The success of the project didn’t stop there. NVL quickly expanded the IBM Power Virtual Server solution to its national forwarding business unit, realizing that the cloud offered the flexibility and security they had long been searching for. “It’s solid. We’re confident in it. It’s secure and reliable, so much so that we’re going through the same process with our other units,” says Greg Moore, VP of IT at National Van Lines.
With IBM and Mainline by their side, National Van Lines has found a reliable partner in the cloud—one that helps them stay resilient and ready to serve their customers, no matter what challenges the future holds.
National Van Lines (link resides outside of ibm.com), based in Broadview, Illinois, is a leading provider of residential and commercial moving services across the United States. Established in 1929, the company offers a wide range of relocation solutions, including long-distance and international moves. Serving both individual customers and businesses, National Van Lines is committed to providing personalized service with a focus on reliability and customer satisfaction. The company operates with a network of professional movers and agents, making it a trusted name in the industry. National Van Lines continues to be a key player in the logistics and moving space.
Mainline Information Systems (link resides outside of ibm.com), headquartered in Tallahassee, FL, is a leading IT solutions and consulting firm specializing in cloud and hybrid cloud offerings, cybersecurity, modern data center solutions, and managed services. With coverage across the United States, strategic partnerships with premier technology companies, and multi-vendor technology expertise, Mainline efficiently delivers cost-effective business outcomes.
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