NAKIVO Enables VM Backup to Amazon Cloud for SoftNAS while Cutting Backup Costs by 75%

The leading provider of software-defined NAS solutions is using NAKIVO Backup & Replication to back up VMware VMs to Amazon Cloud for disaster recovery and replicate mission-critical VMs locally for near-instant operational recovery, while cutting backup costs by 75% as a result of more efficient data deduplication and lower licensing costs.

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Business Challenge

SoftNAS Inc. is the leading provider of software-defined NAS solutions and protects business-critical data for customers using any combination of public, private, and hybrid clouds. Virtual infrastructure at SoftNAS consists of 16 VMware ESXi hosts and 105 VMs. "We run our R&D lab on VMware," says Rick Braddy, Founder and CEO/CTO of SoftNAS, Inc. "This includes VMs for software development, Quality Assurance, build machine, as well infrastructure VMs, such as Windows domain controller, vCenter, remote desktop jump boxes, and our storage server."

As a part of their data protection strategy, SoftNAS decided to back up mission-critical VMs to cloud for disaster recovery. "The ability to keep our VMware backups in Amazon Cloud – which is secure, reliable, and cost-effective – would give us a piece of mind and enable us to recover our VMs in case of a disaster," says Rick. However, their existing VMware backup solution did not provide built-in cloud backup and restore capabilities. On top of that, the solution had a number of other issues. VM backup deduplication worked only at the job level, which means that data was deduplicated only for backups of a single job. For SoftNAS, the choice was either to back up all VMs by one job with the same schedule and options or have separate jobs (as business needs suggested) but lose storage space due to duplicate data in the backup repository. In addition, overly complex interface lead to time-consuming VM backup configuration and maintenance, which had to be done via an RDP session to a backup machine. "The downsides of our existing VMware backup solution combined with a high yearly maintenance cost made us start looking for an alternative," says Rick.

Solution

NAKIVO Backup & Replication has been designed to seamlessly plug into VMware environment and provides a simple and intuitive web interface. "NAKIVO Backup & Replication was far easier to set up and configure compared to our previous VMware backup solution," says Rick. "Backup administration via Web interface is easier to access and works fast."

NAKIVO Backup & Replication provides built-in backup to the cloud that comes at no cost. Backup to Amazon Cloud has been designed to be very simple: "All we had to do is type in Amazon Cloud credentials, enter the required amount of space for backups, and click a single button - NAKIVO Backup & Replication has automatically created a new backup repository for us in the cloud," says Rick. "After the setup was complete, we were able to back up our VMware environment directly to the cloud and we can now perform recoveries at any time and from anywhere."

To save storage space, NAKIVO Backup & Replication provides global data deduplication for VMware VM backups. The product automatically deduplicates VM backups at the block level and ensures that only unique data is saved in the backup repository. All VM backups are deduplicated across entire backup repository – regardless of how many backup jobs have been created, NAKIVO Backup & Replication checks each new data block for duplicates across entire backup repository. After data is deduplicated, the product automatically compresses each block of data so it occupies even less storage space in a backup repository. Both data deduplication and compression features are built-in, enabled by default, work out of the box, and come at no cost.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication provides near-instant operational recovery via VMware VM replication, which creates and maintains identical copies of source VMs on target ESXi hosts. VM copies - called replicas - are regular VMware VMs that are available in VMware vSphere. VM replicas remain in the powered off state and do not consume any resources, yet they can be simply powered on, for near-instant recovery. In addition, up to 30 recovery points can be saved for each VM replica. Each recovery point is a regular VMware VM snapshot, so if a source VM has been damaged, replicas can be easily rolled back to a previous good state even without NAKIVO Backup & Replication.

Results

SoftNAS is now using NAKIVO Backup & Replication to protect their virtualized environment both locally and to the cloud. NAKIVO Backup & Replication enables SoftNAS to back up their mission-critical VMs to Amazon Cloud for disaster recovery. "I have a peace of mind knowing that even if a disaster strikes, our business-critical data is always recoverable from an offsite backup in Amazon Cloud," says Rick. For operational recovery, SoftNAS is using replication. "VMware replication is entirely transparent with NAKIVO," says Rick. "Should we lose an important VM or even an entire ESXi server, we can near-instantly go back online by powering on VM replicas in the vSphere client even without using NAKIVO Backup & Replication."

NAKIVO Backup & Replication has also provided SoftNAS with storage savings. Due to global data deduplication and compression, which work across entire backup repository, SoftNAS has saved 25% of storage space for VM backups vs. their previous data protection solution.

SoftNAS has upgraded to NAKIVO Backup & Replication for less than the cost of yearly maintenance for their previous VMware backup solution. "With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, we have saved more than 50% vs. maintenance of our previous VM backup solution, and have additionally saved 25% more in storage space costs with better deduplication, lowering our backup expenses by 75% overall."

Company Profile

SoftNAS®, Inc. is the leading provider of software-defined NAS solutions and protects mission-critical data for customers using any combination of public, private and hybrid clouds. SoftNAS gives its customers the enterprise-class data security, protection, and performance required to safely, predictably, and reliably operate IT systems and applications. SoftNAS believes in powerful, hassle-free data management and works with any hardware, any data type, across any geography, and with any IT environment, including the most popular public, private, and hybrid cloud computing platforms: Amazon® AWS™, Microsoft® Azure™, CenturyLink Cloud®, VMware vSphere® and service providers. SoftNAS is #1 best-selling NAS filer in the cloud, and the winner of multiple awards, including Red Herring Top 100 Award 2015 and Datacentre ICT Cloud Storage Product of the Year. For more information, refer to www.buurst.com.