Honda Racing F1 Team Relies on BakBone

BakBone Software, Inc. has added the Honda Racing F1 Team to its customer base. The Northamptonshire-based team, which entered the world of Formula One racing in 1999, deployed BakBone NetVault(R): Backup to make its data protection strategy more flexible and cost effective while protecting 30 TB of Windows, Exchange and SQL applications data across 40 servers.

Employing over 600 people, the Honda Racing F1 Team currently stores nearly 100 TB of data on a virtualized storage area network (SAN) that supplies this information to approximately 80 file servers and 700 clients as well as a number of Linux and UNIX-based systems. Because the multi-platform environment restricted the number of available backup solutions, the IT team was previously running EMC NetWorker. However, the software eventually started showing functionality limitations that were preventing the team from moving forward. The Honda Racing F1 Team enlisted the help of NCE, a reseller with which the company already had a successful history, to identify a new solution, and they were introduced to BakBone NetVault: Backup.

"We were looking for a better solution, one that had the flexibility to suit our backup needs as they change over time. When we were shown BakBone NetVault: Backup and what it could do, it really caught our imagination," said Matt Harris, technical infrastructure manager at the Honda Racing F1 Team. "The combination of affordable pricing with strong features such as serverless backup, SmartClients and staged disk backup really impressed us."

BakBone NetVault: Backup allowed the IT team to introduce a backup solution that has zero impact on users thanks to features such as serverless backups, direct backups across the SAN and the option to use either the virtual or the server client backup. "We can pick and choose how to backup our data and how much and how quickly. NetVault: Backup has given us a lot more options," continued Harris.

"Data is not static and backup solutions should not be either. The Honda Racing F1 Team successfully developed and evolved over time and was seeking a data protection product that could keep up with it," said Chris Ross, VP of EMEA, BakBone. "BakBone NetVault: Backup has given the team the levels of data protection, performance and flexibility it demanded across Windows, Unix and Linux."

The Honda Racing F1 Team is currently in the process of migrating its data from the previous solution to NetVault: Backup, which is already protecting increasing portions of the 100 TB of information the company holds. Harris’ team is expecting the software to lead to lower recurring maintenance costs and is planning to add VMware to the strategy.