Microsoft System Center & Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R3 | The AA
Cost-effective availability is possible with Microsoft and Symantec
Client Understanding
The AA, who specialises in motoring services, renewed their Microsoft Licensing Agreement and were in a position to make use of technologies such as System Center 2012. Even through The AA leveraged Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R3 as an industry-standard backup solution, they were faced with challenges such as backups running into production hours and spend on licensing. The initial business requirement was to replace the existing backup solution in an effort to reduce cost and avoid backups from running into production hours. In order to achieve this, AVeS would need gain a complete understanding of the existing backup solution.
Roadmap Approach
A full understanding of the existing backup solution including backup devices, job configuration, selection lists and schedules were through various assessments, as well as technical workshops. From these workshops we were able to design a scalable and flexible backup strategy that catered for local as well offsite storage of backups. Coupled with the inclusion of an industry standard backup product, Microsoft System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager, we would be able to utilise compression and allow for a long term restoration point for data.
Solution
With the approach finalised, the relevant Technical deployment documentation was drawn up and the backup strategy was implemented. A side-by-side implementation strategy was employed whereby Microsoft System Center 2012 Data Protection Manager (DPM) with Service Pack 1 was implemented in parallel to Symantec Backup Exec 2010 R3. This eliminated the risk of a business system being unprotected during the transitioning from backup provider to another. A full backup of the environment was made with Symantec Backup Exec prior to DPM going live into production. Once the full backup was successfully completed, the physical backup server was converted to a virtual machine in order to retain legacy backed up data as a point of reference in the event that data from Symantec Backup Exec ever had to be restored.
DPM was introduced and configured to back up business critical services including, but not limited to, Active Directory, Exchange, Virtual Machines, SQL and Line of Business Applications. Coupled with continuous data protection schedules, the immediate benefit of the DPM solution was the compression ratios that were achieved on disk and tape based backups. In addition to this, backup timeframes were radically reduced and for the first time backups of the entire environment were successfully completed in non-production hours.
Final Outcomes
“Providing a point of reference to the legacy backup solution was always going to be a challenge, however, AVeS were confident in presenting a strategy to meet this utmost important requirement. By providing a solution that ensured backups are completed out of production hours was satisfactory and proved to be a great win for The AA.” – explains Charl Ueckermann, Managing Director at AVeS. “Taking full advantage of Microsoft Licensing, The AA were able to save costs and seamlessly integrate the backup solution into their infrastructure.” – says Ueckermann.
About AVeS
AVeS combines expert knowledge and services with leading technologies to provide comprehensive information security and infrastructure solutions. Working off 15-years of migration strategies, as well as effective designing of various platforms, we pride ourselves in offering an out-of-the-box approach to many tricky situations in which companies find themselves. We create a multi-phase approach to the technologies, we streamline business spend and ensure compliancy with regard to IT infrastructure.