Case Studies
Case Studies

EVault InfoStage dramatically improves backup process for U.K. architectural firm

As one of the U.K's leading commercial architectural firms, Aedas has nine offices throughout the country storing more than 1.5TB of company files. Its information is comprised mostly of CAD/CAM files and Microsoft Office data including Exchange and SQL servers. While its back-office data provided the backbone, its intellectual property and corporate differentiation were designers and architects being constantly able to access the firm's CAD/CAM files.

IT manager Neil Ewing had the unenviable task of trying to manage backups of 450 machines spread across the nine sites with a fairly minimal and untrained staff. Ewing was spending too much time trying to verify the completion of backups in addition to conducting other related manual tasks such as swapping out and replacing media.

"We really needed to look at how we were going to achieve a more manageable solution," Ewing recalled.

Ewing also faced several other challenges: Because he was at the mercy of less technical staff in remote offices to perform backup tasks, Ewing wanted to be able centralize the process so that he could remotely manage the entire environment; and minimize network traffic during the day but make sure backup windows did not stretch into production hours.

As Ewing researched new options, he found products and services that could answer part of the problem. For example, if one product automated the backups, it would then create network traffic that slowed performance. Others would curtail network traffic, but not quite satisfy other considerations such as security.

After considerable evaluation that involved multiple vendors, Aedas selected disk-based EVault InfoStage data protection and recovery software. By deploying EVault InfoStage, Aedas was able to satisfy its primary objectives. EVault InfoStage Agents were installed on the remote servers and backups scheduled each night to the one primary vault. Not only was the process now automated, but administration was centralized, which removed responsibilities from remote-office employees. Ewing estimated that saved the company about 45 man-hours per week.

Unlike his earlier backup solutions, this management capability also showed that the individual jobs were completing more consistently because no longer were large, incremental or full backups were having to moved over an already-clogged network. Conversely, by only backing up new or modified files since the last backup and then compressing those changes by about 60 percent (an impressive amount with CAD/CAM files), EVault DeltaPro™ technology shrunk the backup window and facilitated faster, more consistently reliable network traffic. With Aedas having a large data pool of CAD/CAM data, file compression is especially important for effective data transport from its remote locations to its primary vault. The combination of compression and moving away from tape also meant that Ewing's group did not have to keep buying servers with built-in tape drives at about $4500 each three times a year.

Despite moving away from traditional backup processes, Ewing believes the move to disk-based, online backup was a "perfectly obvious" choice rather than a leap of faith. With EVault InfoStage software now installed, Ewing has been able to focus on other areas of his IT department, save manpower and hardware costs and provide the intangible peace of mind knowing that backups are getting done without the worries.

"It's made backup boring," says Ewing. "It's no longer a headache for me. It just works. The battle to keep it working is simply no longer there."

Discover more about EVault software and services:

Resource Library