Document Imaging Service Provider Ensures On-the-Spot Access of Archived Documents

Profile

Databank Business Services, Inc. provides information resource management solutions that helps companies in the Montgomery, Alabama, area manage information and streamline processes, providing customer-specific solutions that improve productivity and efficiency.

The Challenges

Databank needed a more reliable disaster recovery tool that could protect its customers’ document imaging data. The company’s existing tape backup solution was inefficient, requiring time- and labor- intensive maintenance. In addition, the backups couldn’t be validated nor could Databank’s customers quickly recover lost files in case of system error or a natural disaster. As a result, business continuity and employee productivity suffered.

The Solution

Databank deployed a rapid disaster recovery solution from Unitrends that gave its customers a more efficient data protection strategy. By only backing up new or changed data to disk, the solution dramatically reduced the backup cycle and ensured reliability. Customers can now recover an individual document in minutes or do a complete BareMetal restore of an entire server or PC in less than one hour.

“It’s not often that a company’s disaster recovery solution contributes to revenue, but that’s exactly what Unitrends has accomplished.” -- Cameron Sauce, Operations Manager, Databank

Customer needs and a competitive market pushed Databank to find a better disaster recovery solution. Databank’s existing tape backup solution simply wasn’t effective. The tape backups were unreliable, difficult to manage and took too long to complete. Most importantly, however, electronic document retrieval was a major pain point. The entire process was extremely labor-intensive, requiring a lot of hands-on maintenance.

“Customers need access to documents quickly, whether they need the files for auditing, compliance or other business use,” said Cameron Sauce, operations manager, Databank. “Tape couldn’t provide the time to recovery our customers needed, so it was time to start thinking about disk-based backup solutions.”

Rapid Recovery Appliances from Unitrends

In an effort to streamline customers’ archiving process for images and documents, Databank developed a new disaster recovery service that automatically backs up all files to disk using a Unitrends Data Protection Unit (DPU). The disk-based rapid recovery appliances ensure that reliable copies of customers’ electronic images and documents are stored securely onsite and are readily available to be retrieved by the customer within minutes. 

After investigating several other disk-based backup options, Sauce settled on the Unitrends solution because its architecture ensures that data never leaves the backup environment, increasing security and reducing the potential of lost or corrupted data. He was also encouraged that the intuitive management GUI would make the backup process easier on his customers.

One Unitrends DPU is deployed at each customer site and each one is managed by the internal IT department. An intuitive management GUI makes it easy to conduct backups, leveraging automatic technology within the DPU to simplify and streamline the data protection process. The Unitrends solution only backs up new or changed files, reducing the amount of raw data that has to be backed up each night while ensuring that the entire environment can be recovered to a set point in time.

“The shorter backup cycle allows me to conduct multiple backups a day, instead of just one per night,” Sauce said. “That way, if we need to restore to the latest backup, we’re able to restore to a point in time a couple of hours old, rather than lose a full day of data.”

For added disaster recovery protection, Databank uses Unitrends’ Data Protection Vault (DPV) to replicate the data to its climate-controlled, fire-proof vault where it is stored offsite and protected from natural disasters or other data center catastrophes. The vault is a self-contained data center impervious to outside physical and electronic threats, protected by state-of-the-art security software, surveillance technology and six-inch thick steel walls. It even has its own generators in case the electrical grid goes down, ensuring that customer data can be restored quickly and employees are able to get back to work shortly after the loss of data.

The new data recovery process is simple. Customers simply have to log onto the DPU, find the requested document and retrieve it within minutes. Or, administrators from Databank can remotely access the appliance and recover the data from a distance. In addition to data recovery, the Unitrends solution can do BareMetal restores, literally rebuilding a system—a server, desktop or laptop—from scratch. This includes the operating system, business applications, email, user settings, even drivers. Provisioning a server manually typically takes days—if not weeks—but Unitrends is able to automate the process using predetermined policies, allowing an administrator to do it in less than an hour.

New Disaster Recovery Service

By leveraging the efficient, simple and reliable disaster recovery solution from Unitrends, Databank is able to provide its customers with a new disaster recovery service in support of its information resource management services. As a result, customers are able to retrieve any document—whether it is an invoice, contract or government form—within minutes. They no longer have to wait hours or days to retrieve the documents, helping to streamline business processes, ensure internal and external compliance and make employees more productive.

“The Unitrends solution is perfectly suited to our business model,” Sauce said. “It effectively enables our new disaster recovery service, protecting our customers’ business documents electronically and making them immediately available. Not only is it an important value-add that we’re now able to offer, it improves customer service and positions us as a trusted technology advisor.”

The solution also ensures business continuity in case of a natural disaster or widespread data loss, helping the company get back up and running more quickly. According to Sauce, the thought of restoring an entire IT environment from tape is tough to swallow and should only be attempted as a last resort. It’s just too complex, it takes too long and data can be easily corrupted. As a result, days, weeks or even months of productivity would be lost. The Unitrends solution on the other hand, enables a company to immediately start the restoration process.

Databank recently had two real-world internal situations where the Unitrends DPU saved the day -- recovering lost customer data after a laptop failure, and upgrading a mission-critical server invisibly.

Fully restoring a server from tape normally takes weeks. Even a streaming disk-based data recovery solution would take several days because of the need to manually provision the server. With Unitrends, Databank was able to do it in several hours. And now that Sauce has gone through the process, he says he could do it in less than one hour if pressed.

“At this point, we were thoroughly impressed with the Unitrends product and started to realize that we could market a new service to our customers,” Sauce said. “It’s not often that a company’s disaster recovery solution contributes to revenue, but that’s exactly what Unitrends has accomplished.”

Key Benefits

• Databank is able to offer a new disaster recovery service, adding to its services portfolio and increasing revenue
• Customers have immediate, reliable access to archived documents, improving employee productivity
• Reliable document availability streamlines auditing and compliance efforts
• Disaster recovery solution is more robust, allowing customers to get back up and running more quickly
• The backup cycle is fast and more efficient, requiring less time and less hands-on maintenance

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