CSA EXCLUSIVE: Crab Place secures network with cloud transformation
An online seafood retailer is taking a proactive approach to enterprise security with a cloud-based infrastructure.
Chain Store Age recently spoke with Greg Cain, CEO of Crab Place, a Crisfield, Md.-based premium online seafood retailer delivering Maryland-caught blue crab and other specialty seafood to customers across the country.
As Crab Place grew in popularity, the retailer found securely managing its dedicated hosting environment increasingly challenging.
"We didn’t have enough in-house expertise to maintain our network properly and we were always chasing problems from behind," said Cain. "The servers were older and there were ongoing threats from outside sources that we had to react to as the threats impacted us."
Based on a personal relationship with the CEO of Trofeo, a Microsoft Azure cloud solutions provider, Cain met with the core Trofeo team and decided to shift Blue Crab’s physical server-based network infrastructure to a cloud-based environment. Trofeo delivered an updated cloud environment tailored to Crab Place’s existing systems and future potential systems.
"Trofeo took over and completely did the installation, moving us from our previous, older environment to an engineered, Azure world-class environment," Cain said. "We’ve been up and running for several months and the results have been incredible."
According to Cain, during the first quarter of 2025, as a result of implementing a cloud-based infrastructure based on Trofeo technology threat attempts on its network had drastically reduced due to various strategies Trofeo had put in place to eliminate them.
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"No longer are we reactive, but proactive," said Cain. "I get regular emails from the Trofeo team as they assess the logs on the network and ask questions to ensure that they’re correct in interpreting our normal working traffic versus possible intruder traffic."
Cain said Trofeo completely manages all cloud hosting maintenance, enabling Crab Place to focus on selling premium seafood to customers. In addition to enhancing site security and ensuring a seamless online customer experience, Cain said shifting to cloud-based enterprise technology has enabled it to sustain peak customer demand and orders, increasing customer satisfaction.
Looking ahead, Cain said that in the near future, Crab Place will launch a replatforming of its website, which will necessitate further server support.
"With the Azure environment that Trofeo has created, we’ll easily be able to scale as needed to keep up with growth and additional resources that may be required," said Cain. "This relationship has taken one less headache off of our plate and we couldn’t be happier about it."
