Data Backup Case

The Customer - A large manufacturing company based in Yorkshire with over 500 users. The Server environment is a mix of Netware, AIX, Linux and windows and for E-mail uses Novell GroupWise.

The Challenge - The customer has recently carried out a large project to carry out the virtualization of as many physical servers as possible to a virtual environment.  By doing this the original backup system was not fit for purpose for the backups of the virtual server estate.  The server estate changed from having all physical servers to over 120 virtual ones with a few physical remaining.

The Solution - The revised backup solution involved the installation of two new backup silos, one on site and a second off site at the customers DR site.  The offsite silo is capable of up to 12TB of backup storage and the onsite uses the customers own SAN for the backups.  Keytech has installed multiple backup products to enable the backups of the virtual and physical servers running UNIX, Windows and Netware to be carried out automatically.   This is a fully managed service and any failed or missed backups are re-run by the service desk team remotely.

Another significant benefit is business continuity and disaster recovery: In the non-virtual world the customer struggled to recover 12 critical systems within the 24 hours that the business had specified, and over 10 tests this was never achieved. During the first test in the virtual world the DR testing team recovered all 12 systems, a total of 25 servers, well within those timescales.