It’s time to implement the latest and greatest network computing upgrade. On the surface, it’s the kind of business decision most information-technology managers make without thinking twice.

But instead of spending that money to improve IT operations, what if the same amount could be used to let a 13-year-old girl with a heart condition be a ballerina? Or allow a 15-year-old boy with cystic fibrosis to experience what it’s like to be a Navy Seal?

Suddenly, a “no-brainer” decision becomes a little tougher. Yet, this is exactly the kind of question that Bipin Jayaraj (pictured) must continuously wrestle with in his role as vice president and chief information officer of Make-A-Wish Foundation of America.

“It takes close to $10,400 to grant a wish,” Jayaraj said. “As an IT leader I would probably pick the upgrade, but as a volunteer I would say no, it needs to go to the kid.”

Jayaraj spoke with Dave Vellante and Peter Burris, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the VeeamON event in Miami Beach, Florida. They discussed the challenge he faced in consolidating a distributed IT network into a single, centralized operation, how technology partners assisted him in that journey, the importance of data backup when disaster strikes, and how next-generation technologies could play an even greater role in helping a child’s dream come true (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

This week, theCUBE features Bipin Jayaraj as its Guest of the Week.

Consolidating 60 locations

Jayaraj’s conundrum is part of a much larger story. It involves his foundation’s need to run an effective, centralized IT operation that supports 60 chapters of various sizes in 120 locations around the country, all while making sure that every donated dollar possible can help fulfill the dreams of children with serious illnesses.

One challenge Make-A-Wish confronted several years ago was that each of its 60 chapters not only had its own team, it also had separate on-premises IT infrastructure. To address this issue, the foundation began its cloud migration journey in 2011. Then Batkid came along.

In 2013, the nonprofit granted the wish of a five-year-old cancer survivor in San Francisco to be Batkid for a day. Batkid became an overnight national media sensation that sparked tremendous interest in Make-A-Wish, but the foundation’s IT infrastructure could not handle the sudden spike in donations, and the website crashed. Millions of dollars in new revenue were lost.

Make-A-Wish has spent the time since then to consolidate its distributed IT infrastructure and moved workloads to PhoenixNAP’s private cloud platform. The foundation also uses VMware Inc.’s vSphere compute and NSX networking.

“We had to move all of the data from the 60 chapters, applications, everything into a centralized data location that we manage right now from the Make-A-Wish national office and provide as a service back to them,” said Jayaraj, who recalled his pitch to the chief executives running the local branches. “Let me do all the operational minutia of IT, leave it to me, and I’ll handle it for you. I’ll let you go do what you do best, which is granting wishes.”

How much data does it take to make a child’s wish come true? About 200 terabytes, according to Jayaraj, and his organization relies on Veeam Inc.’s Backup and Replication for Cloud Data Management to keep critical information always available when needed.

This process and its efficiencies of scale have allowed the foundation to increase the amount of time employees can work on granting wishes. The cost savings also became apparent after shedding 60 different IT organizations and consolidating operations into one.

“What are we selling?” Jayaraj asked. “It’s emotions and stories; that’s our data. That’s huge for us.”

Helping families in Puerto Rico

The availability of data can take on added meaning when the hopes and dreams of young children are involved. When a deadly Category 5 hurricane devastated the island of Puerto Rico in 2017, it knocked out electrical power for 11 months.

This tragic situation affected a number of Make-A-Wish parents and children who were relying on the organization. Data replication became critical for Jayaraj and his IT team.

“The minute a Wish journey starts, everything is on us until the Wish journey ends,” Jayaraj explained. “There were 10 Wish families who were stranded because of that. We quickly had to replicate everything they had into a completely different place so they had access to it.”

Technology can also play a direct role in the Wish experience itself. When Make-A-Wish received a challenging request from a 7-year old boy with a congenital heart defect who wanted to travel to Saturn, the nonprofit reached out to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for help.

Working with the agency, the foundation used both video conferencing with a real astronaut and virtual reality to create a memorable experience.

“I’m excited about the use of these next-generation technologies like augmented and virtual reality to grant a wish,” Jayaraj said. “How cool would that be for granting a wish to a kid who is not able to get out of the bed but can experience Hawaii and swimming or being in Disney World for a couple of days?”

Building relationships for a noble cause

Jayaraj has spent the majority of his career in the private sector, working for companies in both Silicon Valley and the Phoenix, Arizona, area. Before joining Make-A-Wish, he was the vice president of information technology for NTT Data Americas.

He has also been fortunate in his own career to receive advice and mentorship from other IT executives. One of them was Randy Sloan, former CIO for Southwest Airlines Co. and PepsiCo Inc.

Sloan helped Jayaraj understand the importance of not just staying up to date on the latest technologies, but also exercising the tenets of leadership. It was advice that served Jayaraj well as he pursued his own wish to consolidate 60 separate IT organizations into one.

“He always told me that it’s one thing to know the technology, but it’s completely another thing to build the relationships and lead,” Jayaraj recalled. “Leadership is always very important for these big initiatives. It’s a nonprofit, and it’s a very noble, nice feeling.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VeeamON event. (* Disclosure: Veeam Software Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Veeam nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE