NAKIVO Decreases Backup Administration Time by 50% and Storage Space by 30% for FEhS Institute
Business Challenge
Headquartered in Duisburg, Germany, FEhS–Institut für Baustoff-Forschung e.V. has substantial experience in investigation and development of applications for industrial co-products and residues, especially in iron and steelmaking. The company performs research on national and international level in the area of by-products, consulting in the field of recycling building materials and landfill, and evaluation of research projects.
"Our environment is quite simple. We have one site, one blade server housing with four used slots. The four machines are holding a total number of around 16 VMs. We also have one standalone server for our Oracle DB," says Rene Griesa, Data Processing Manager at FEhS. "The applications that we have are Microsoft Exchange, WSUS, DNS, Licensing, VPN, Home and Groupshares, and Remote Workstations."
The main focus of FEhS is research, development, and consulting, and so VM backup and VM recovery are imperative for the success of the business. "Most of our research depends on an immense amount of historical data. Without a proper backup, we run a chance of losing historical data that was collected during the last 20 years," says Rene. Previously, the institute protected its data with a legacy backup solution, however, the solution caused problems since jobs were failing constantly.
The previous backup solution did not work correctly with deduplicated Windows 2012 volumes and that caused even more problems for the IT department. "I spent a considerable amount of time in the evening and on the weekends monitoring the VM backups. The backup solution gave me e-mail updates that backup jobs completed successfully. However, the core problem was that if I wanted to recover files, VM backups were not functional. Sometimes, the product recovered 20% of the files, other times 50%, but never all the files. Eventually, we found that deduplication from our Windows 2012 Server was causing this and saw that it was the fault of the backup solution," says Rene.
Solution
NAKIVO Backup & Replication was introduced to FEhS by their partner. The institute selected the pre-configured Virtual Appliance deployment option. "NAKIVO Backup & Replication was installed in a couple of minutes with the pre-configured Virtual Appliance. The configuration was simple and straightforward. After the installation, the first backup job ran for about 30 minutes - it just worked out of the box," says Rene. "The web interface is clear and you can always find the things you need without long searches," says Rene.
NAKIVO Backup & Replication provides features aimed to improve VM backup reliability, usability, and performance. For example, entire VMs can be recovered in just a few clicks – there is no need to manually recreate a VM, install an OS, and then restore data. "I performed a test recovery for a VM and noticed that not only everything worked smoothly, but also the recovery was quite fast. In a real disaster recovery situation, this feature would save days," says Rene.
NAKIVO Backup & Replication provides significant storage space reduction with global data deduplication. This feature is available out of the box, enabled by default, and does not require any setup or configuration. "Global data deduplication feature is a must have for us. It saves us real money on a daily basis. Not only were we able to significantly reduce storage space, but we also saved money on maintenance, electricity, and cooling," says Rene.
The screenshot verification feature provides an automated way to instantly verify VMware VM backups and sends screenshots of the restored VMs as a proof of recoverability. "Without a doubt, screenshot verification is a cool feature. You can hold back a history of successful and working VM backups. The feature is a time saver," says Rene. "I see that my VM backups are successful and I can recover files from them, so basically, I do not have to spend time on backup administration and maintenance," says Rene.
Results
NAKIVO Backup & Replication has impressed FEhS with its usability, flexibility, and features. Rene is also satisfied with the fast and professional level of support that he receives. "NAKIVO Backup & Replication is a powerful software. From the really clear web interface to the fast and helpful support," says Rene. "NAKIVO Backup & Replication solved the problems with our deduplicated volumes on the main data server. Now we have a working, fast, and affordable backup solution for all our demands. I can confidently say that we trust NAKIVO Backup & Replication!" says Rene.
With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, FEhS reduced backup administration time and storage space. "With NAKIVO, we saved more than 50% on backup administration. I no longer spend my evenings and weekends on VM backups maintenance. In addition, we reduced our storage space by approximately 30%," says Rene. "We are happy that we chose NAKIVO Backup & Replication because now we have time to spend on our other IT administration tasks," says Rene.
Company Profile
Founded in 1950, FEhS–Institut für Baustoff-Forschung e.V. checks and monitors industrial by-products, such as iron and steel slags, and other building products. The institute is a part of an extensive network of research institutes, laboratories, and interest groups. Registered members of the institute include steel mills, cement plants, and processing companies. FEhS explores potential uses of mill slags and residues, consults construction companies, and dispatches experts to national and international committees for standardization. Moreover, research is performed on secondary raw materials/slag metallurgy, with the aim to optimize the production process and use resources efficiently in terms of environmental and sustainable steelmaking. Lastly, FEhS develops and enhances processes for the production of fertilizers out of industrial by-products and develops measures to improve environmental performance. For more information, visit www.fehs.de.