Hospital Backups Reduced 75% from 24 to 6 Hours with Data Deduplication Solution
One of the main problems we hear over and over again from customers is the need for them to reduce their backup times. IT staff backing up with tape will take any of a variety of steps to try and reduce backup times, such as cutting-back the amount of data backed-up nightly, changing rotations, and adding more drives to the tape library, if that is possible. Eventually there are no more work-arounds. The story of how MemorialCare tackled this problem with disk-based data deduplication--and also provided for better offsite disaster recovery--is one I thought you would find interesting.
MemorialCare is a leading nationally recognized, not-for-profit health system with six hospitals in California. MemorialCare’s IT Operations department was responsible for managing and protecting over 150 servers containing patient and business data. Continuous and around the clock data backups were extremely labor intensive and stressing out the IT staff. Backups ran 12 to 18 hours a day and with data vaulting, the total backup window was nearly 24 hours, consuming 200-300 backup tapes per week. Difficulty restoring data from tape was also causing problems.
MemorialCare’s IT staff decided to look at new ways to protect its data, considering both straight disk and disk-based backup with data deduplication options. “Straight disk without data deduplication simply wasn’t cost-effective. We looked at several different disk-based backup solutions and chose ExaGrid based on its price, performance, manageability, support and reliability,” said Jorge Cepeda, Network Engineer at MemorialCare. “The ExaGrid system enabled us to significantly reduce our backup window and really makes the whole backup process painless. Also, the fact that we could replicate data between two ExaGrid systems was important because we could act as our own disaster recovery center.” MemorialCare installed two ExaGrid disk-based backup with data deduplication systems at two hospital locations, working alongside their backup application, Symantec/Veritas NetBackup. Eventually, MemorialCare plans to place ExaGrid’s data deduplication systems at each of its six hospitals and replicate the data between locations for disaster recovery.
ExaGrid’s byte-level data deduplication technology stores changes from backup to backup instead of storing full file copies. This unique approach reduces the disk space required by a range of 10:1 to 50:1 or more, delivering unparalleled cost savings and performance. MemorialCare now completes its nightly backups in six hours, and no longer needs to vault its data because the backup is replicated onto its second ExaGrid system.
MemorialCare Meets Green Initiative, Streamlines Backup Process with ExaGrid’s Disk-Based Data Deduplication
Many of our customers have Green IT initiatives, and MemorialCare also had one, where they were focusing on reducing data center power requirements and rack space. At just 3U, ExaGrid’s compact size helps maximize rack space and its 120 volt power supply draws less power than other disk-backup solutions that require 220 volts. Additionally, ExaGrid’s GRID computing software makes the system highly scalable, and when plugged into a switch, different sized configurations can be mixed and matched into a single GRID system with capacities of up to 60TB.
“The ExaGrid fits in nicely with our green initiative. Because the ExaGrid is an appliance, we can scale incrementally. Other vendors required us to purchase racks of equipment with greater power and cooling requirements,” said Jorge Cepeda. “We’ve been working closely with ExaGrid’s support team to streamline our backup processes even further. We have a technician assigned to our account that is always accessible, familiar with our environment and is extremely knowledgeable about backups. It’s nice to be able to leverage that expertise.”
Yet another customer whose backups were made better by switching from tape to disk-backup with data deduplication.