Nebraska Utility Modernizes File Sync and Compliance Across State-wide Network

Central Nebraska Public Power & Irrigation District (CNPPID) is a public utility responsible for delivering irrigation water to over 100,000 acres and generating renewable hydropower that supports homes, farms, and businesses across the state.

As the utility’s digital workflows expanded to include engineering documents, compliance records, drone inspection footage, and operational data, CNPPID’s IT team needed a modern way to keep files synchronized across a low-bandwidth, geographically dispersed environment, without adding significant overhead.

CNPPID’s environment is uniquely demanding, with four main offices and four hydropower plants spread across two-thirds of Nebraska, all connected not by fiber but by line-of-sight microwave links. The entire system is gated by a weakest link of just ~12 Mbps, a fraction of what most enterprises rely on. The narrow 12 Mbps microwave link introduced significant latency, making it nearly impossible for traditional replication tools to keep files synchronized.

“We were unable to rely on the files being the same in our two primary locations, and in many cases, they were not. We had to use one of the sites as the master set of files and then would have to compare a file being worked on to make sure it was the same as the master, which created concern,” Mike Klaus, Senior Systems Analyst of CNPPID, explains.

This workaround highlighted a deeper problem in that CNPPID’s legacy replication tools (including DFSR and scheduled batch copies) simply couldn’t keep its distributed environment synchronized. Legacy tools also lacked reliable file locking controls, which meant users could unintentionally overwrite each other’s changes, creating additional version conflicts across sites. File mismatches were common, errors went undetected, and their IT team lacked the necessary resources (people or tools) to maintain visibility across sites.

Meanwhile, CNPPID’s files continued to grow, with 1.5 TB of documents, plus drone imagery and operational data, moving across the same narrow links. This volume magnified every sync failure, risking data loss and making it nearly impossible to maintain a reliable, single source of truth.

To break free from the limitations of Distributed File System Replication (DFSR) and manual file-copy routines, CNPPID has deployed Resilio Active Everywhere, a distributed data movement platform designed for real-time, resilient file synchronization across any infrastructure.

Unlike hub-and-spoke replication, which relies on a central server pushing data outward, Active Everywhere creates a peer-to-peer mesh where every endpoint can participate in the synchronization process. This architecture delivers superior optimization, scalability, and the ability to replicate files in parallel across all locations. For CNPPID, this means that their four offices and four hydropower plants exchange updates directly, in parallel, without overloading the 12 Mbps microwave link.

Because Active Everywhere operates in real time, CNPPID no longer worries about conflicting file versions or outdated operational data at remote facilities. The platform’s management console also delivered something CNPPID never had before, and that’s accurate visibility. “We can go into the console and see if there are errors between our two main locations. We’ve got insight into what’s going on—and with that small pipe—it’s pretty darn important,” said Mike Klaus.

Active Everywhere delivered several critical advantages over DFS Replication:

• Fast, reliable, real-time sync, even over a 12 Mbps link
• Clear visibility and diagnostics
• Replaced two divergent file systems with one unified environment
• Seamless integration with existing infrastructure

For CNPPID, one of the biggest surprises wasn’t technical at all; it was the human side of the experience. With a small IT team supporting a vast, distributed utility environment, deploying a new platform can often be a stressful, time-consuming, and disruptive process. But the Resilio customer success onboarding process was just the opposite.

From day one, the Resilio team worked closely with CNPPID, helping to architect the deployment, advising on the domain transition, and even providing temporary licenses to ensure the domain cutover was seamless. The support team didn’t simply hand over instructions; they stayed engaged until everything was running perfectly.

That support proved invaluable when CNPPID transitioned to its new domain. Case in point: one of their document-management vendors noted that a process like this typically takes an entire weekend, but with Resilio, the system was fully operational in just a few hours.

More importantly, CNPPID now enjoys these ongoing benefits:

• One unified file environment across domains
• Real-time file updates between their two primary file servers
• Reliable sync across a constrained 12 Mbps link
• Error visibility through the management console
• Reduced operational overhead for a two-person IT team
• Confidence that every file is identical everywhere it needs to be

For a rural utility with distributed infrastructure and limited bandwidth, keeping data synchronized was once a constant battle. With the Resilio Active Everywhere Platform, CNPPID now has a fast, resilient, compliant, and transparent data-movement foundation that eliminates risk, supports critical operations, and empowers a small IT team to manage a large, complex environment with confidence.

Resilio didn’t just replace CNPPID’s legacy sync. It provided the utility with a single, always-current source of truth for the operational data that powers its entire organization. With Resilio, CNPPID now treats data movement not as a bottleneck, but as a strategic enabler for reliable operations across the state.

If CNPPID's challenges sound familiar—unreliable DFSR, version conflicts, bandwidth constraints, or simply a lack of visibility into what's actually syncing—it's time for a better approach. Our DFSR replacement experts have helped dozens of utilities, energy companies, and distributed enterprises move beyond Microsoft's legacy replication to a platform purpose-built for modern, distributed operations.

Contact us to see how Resilio Active Everywhere performs in your specific environment. We'll assess your current setup, identify your sync bottlenecks, and demonstrate how real-time, peer-to-peer synchronization can transform data movement from a daily headache into a strategic advantage.