First National Bank Invests in CommVault Simpana

F.N.B. Corporation, a diversified financial services company based in Hermitage, PA, has deployed CommVault Systems, Inc.‘s Simpana software to ensure the security and protection of its mission-critical financial data while meeting strict corporate governance, retention and compliance requirements.

With total assets exceeding $8 billion, FNB has continued to grow aggressively through a strategy of mergers and acquisitions. FNB now operates banks, consumer finance and loan production offices spanning 295 locations across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Tennessee and Florida.

Simpana software serves as the foundation of FNB’s efforts to consolidate numerous inconsistent, inefficient and costly data protection solutions into one single data and information management platform. According to FNB, CommVault’s unique Singular Information Management approach will enable the bank to realize a projected savings of more than $10 million over three years.

FNB worked closely with Dell’s Global Infrastructure Consulting Service to create a business case for upgrading its storage infrastructure and improving data management with centralized backup and recovery, deduplication, replication and archiving. In addition to integration between data management applications, Simpana software’s demonstrated scalability accommodates FNB’s aggressive growth strategy and ability to deliver exceptional customer service.

A 17-member IT team maintains FNB’s robust technology environment, which includes 3,200 PCs, 570 file servers and more than 200 software applications, including Microsoft Office, Novell GroupWise as well as financial, CRM and ERP software.

Banking on CommVault for Deduplication,
Replication & Business Continuity
FNB reports taking advantage of Simpana software’s common platform and data management modules to reduce data growth, lower administrative overhead, decrease tape and improve RTO/RPO. By using Simpana software, FNB has standardized IT operations while better aligning the organization to keep pace with rapidly changing business requirements.

According to FNB, CommVault’s embedded deduplication provided the performance and scalability it sought while costing less per terabyte than appliance-based solutions. Data reduction ratios of 83 to 89 percent have been achieved, enabling them to store roughly 41 TBs of data on 6 TBs of disk.

FNB also cites significant data protection improvements after centralizing 13 disparate backup systems on the Simpana Backup and Recovery module, reducing backup time for a main server from 90 hours to 24 while decreasing incremental backups from 24 to two hours. Backup success rates have jumped to 99 percent, enhancing backup reliability. FNB also calculated a 60-percent savings in tape costs by eliminating daily and weekly tape backups.

According to FNB, the Simpana Replication module has optimized remote backups and restores to elevate overall disaster recovery capabilities. By establishing business continuity best practices with Simpana software, FNB is better positioned to be in compliance with any financial risk assessment requirements.

FNB plans to leverage the Simpana Archive module to migrate stale file-system data from primary storage onto secondary systems for cost-effective storage tiering. The company also relies on Simpana software’s virtualization capabilities to enhance data protection and ease management of virtual servers running VMware.

Brian Diegan, vice president of network services for First National Bank: said:" By partnering with CommVault, we’ve been able to ensure unsurpassed data protection and security. Simpana software plays an important role in helping us reduce risks, costs and administrative overhead while elevating our data management to new levels of efficiency. We were able to demonstrate how switching to Simpana software would produce a projected savings of more than $10 million over three years, which helped us get the green light to move forward. We also knew CommVault would be a partner, not just a vendor, in ensuring the success of the deployment. CommVault software gave us the best of both worlds – centralized backups and scalable, affordable deduplication utilizing less-expensive disk. Simpana software’s replication feature has opened a lot of doors for us in terms of elevating disaster recovery and business continuity. For instance, we’ve eliminated tape management at remote locations in favor of leveraging replication and virtual tape virtualization of servers to gain faster recovery times while greatly simplifying the process.”

John Fuge, senior network engineer for First National Bank: said:" It’s great to use a single console to manage everything from backups and restores to deduplication and replication. Having all the integrated functionality in one platform is the best way for us to deal with rapid growth, meet our extended data retention requirements and expedite data recovery. The Simpana Archive module will prove instrumental in helping us control file sizes and user disk space. We’ll also be able to rely on CommVault’s indexing and search capabilities to find and retrieve this older data as needed to support any legal discovery or compliance request. Few products run as reliably as Simpana software, but it’s great to know the platform is backed by such excellent technical support. Over the past decade, I haven’t dealt with better people—from the support center team to the onsite engineers who optimize every step of the project.”

To read the First National Bank Case case