Customers
Momentum Group Improves Backup Efficiency with Unitrends™ DPU data protection solution
Industry > Commercial Textiles
Challenges
- Heterogeneous computing environment required two separate backup systems
- Excessive time for data backups to tape
- Tape-based system introduced potential for loss of mission-critical data
- Inefficient use of resources due to required physical visits to off-site data center for tape changes and data retrieval
Solution
Unitrends DPU 2000
Results
- Reduced backup time from three hours to 12 minutes on average
- Remote data management saves time and enables better use of resources
- Higher reliability and lower data loss risk
- Hot Bare Metal™ eliminates the need for two separate backup systems
Headquartered in Irvine, California, the Momentum Group is a $40 million, fast-growing distributor of commercial textiles. With three brands — Momentum Textiles, Textus and LoomSource — Momentum Group functions as an umbrella organization providing the office, hotel, cruise ship, and healthcare markets with a wide selection of upholstery via a field sales force of approximately 35 representatives.
As a company committed to superior service and operational excellence, Momentum depends on access to a wide range of mission-critical data to ensure fast and high quality service for its more than 5,000 customers.
However, over the past year, Momentum found itself burdened with an increasingly complex data backup environment that was putting its vital customer information continually at risk, driving higher costs, and preventing the company from making the best use of its scarce resources.
A tape-based system, limited T1 capacity to its remote data center, and not enough hours in the day left Momentum with few options, other than continually sending personnel to the data center to back up the server, change tapes and retrieve deleted or missing files. That's when Momentum knew it needed to explore alternative solutions.
Challenges > Inefficient, Risk-Prone Data Backup Environment
A number of factors complicated Momentum's computing and backup environment, creating inefficiencies and a high exposure to data loss. First, because Momentum runs heterogeneous Windows and Linux platforms for mission-critical applications, the company was forced to use and manage two separate backup solutions for each platform.
Secondly, with all of their mission-critical servers hosted off-site, Momentum was performing daily backups across a T1 line, which took as much as seven hours. On top of this, staffers were performing daily backups of large amounts of data strictly to tape. This required using individual tapes for each server, with two or three tape changes for every backup, consequently wasting time and introducing room for human error.
"Our backup environment was pretty chaotic. With two different platforms and a high frequency of backups, there were a lot of moving parts that were putting our mission critical data at risk," says John Hester, System and Network Administrator for Momentum. "Besides reducing excessive time for backups, we needed to simplify things and take the potential for human error out of the equation. We also needed it to be cost-effective; we didn't have the resources that high-end solutions require, but needed the kind of performance that they deliver."
Solution > Unitrends' Total Data Protection
In mid-2004, Hester teamed up with his reseller, Zumasys, and began conducting extensive research on several backup solutions in the market, including products from Arkeia and Yosemite Tapeware, before finally choosing Unitrends' Data Protection Units (DPUs™). According to Hester, Unitrends was the compelling choice because it delivered powerful data protection in an integrated appliance, as well as added advantages, such as solid disk-to-disk technology, central management features, and Hot Bare Metal™ system restoration for both Windows and Linux.
"Until we found Unitrends, we just couldn't find another company that offered everything we needed in one package," explains Hester. "The other systems seemed plausible on the surface, but in digging deeper, they were missing key pieces. The Unitrends solution covers all our requirements, giving us a complete disk-to-disk solution with a single point of central management plus bare metal restore for both platforms."
Today, Momentum is using the Unitrends DPU2000 with the optional compression chip, and three 400 GB hard drives in a RAID 5 configuration. This provides the company with approximately 800 GB of available storage. In addition, applications are on a Citrix server, enabling remote management of all data resources. Momentum also contracted with Unitrends' professional services group to assist with the implementation and training. The implementation process was very smooth and painless, taking only three days to install the system.
Results > Fast Backups, Lower Risk and Improved Efficiency
Momentum has realized a number of key benefits since implementing Unitrends' DPU appliances. The transition to disk-to-disk alone is saving substantial time and reducing risk by limiting human intervention in the process. Backups of Momentum's Universe database have gone from three hours to 12 minutes. Time was a crucial issue, because Momentum had exhausted its options based on the number of servers available at the data center and the ability to send data across the T1 line during off hours. Further, the DPUs incorporate built-in RX9 compression that efficiently reduces Universe data to from 4GB to 1.5GB. "The increase in backup speed has given us tremendous flexibility to explore all kinds of other options as far as storing historical data," says Hester. "It's made time and storage capacity a non-issue as we have an abundance of both. For example, the capacity of the LT02 is so high that we can load up six tapes and use one tape per month and only have to visit the data center basically twice a year for the purpose of changing the tapes for archival purposes."
The remote management capabilities are also having a major impact on improving efficiency. Often, users call the network administration help desk because they've accidentally deleted a file or perhaps need an old file. Before implementing Unitrends, this required a help desk person to physically drive to the data center to locate the tape with the appropriate file. With Unitrends' centrally managed disk-to-disk solution, support personnel do not even have to leave their desks. Everything can be managed remotely within a matter of minutes.
For disaster recovery, Unitrends provides a complete solution for both Windows and Linux, eliminating the need for customized restore procedures on each platform. Unitrends' Hot Bare Metal™ automates and streamlines the server recovery process, making it unnecessary to manually reinstall operating systems or configure hardware.
Hester adds, "Possibly the biggest benefit of the Unitrends solution is that after the initial setup, it's all hands-off. We have to load new tapes into the autoloader every six months and that's it. There's no danger of missing a backup because someone forgot to load the tape, or left it write-protected."
Future Plans
The Momentum Group is delighted with the Unitrends solution and the resultant time and cost savings, not to mention the intangible greater peace-of-mind and user morale benefits.
"Unitrends provides everything we need; it provides us with total data protection at a price that delivers superior value and performance. We look forward to a long relationship and future solutions to help us meet our ever-changing data backup requirements," concludes Hester.