Berry Plastics Implements Symantec Protection Software

Symantec Corp. announced Berry Plastics Corp. has implemented Symantec software solutions in order to centrally manage endpoint security and data backup and recovery operations.

As a result, Berry Plastics has been able to re-allocate 5,200 hours of IT staff time per year previously spent on information security and management tasks, reduce backup data for remote sites by 50 percent and realize a threefold performance improvement over the company’s previous antivirus security solution.

Headquartered in Evansville, Ind., Berry Plastics is a manufacturer of injection-molded plastic packaging, thermoformed products, flexible films, and tapes and coatings. The company has grown rapidly due to a steady stream of acquisitions, going from 15 remote locations to 96 with 16,600 employees around the world.

Managing endpoint security on 5,000 individual computers and making sure backups were completed at all locations became a logistical nightmare. So Berry Plastics replaced its McAfee antivirus software with Symantec Endpoint Protection to reduce administrative overhead and costs associated with managing multiple endpoints by providing protection in a single agent that is administered via a single management console. This simplified endpoint security administration and provided Berry Plastics with operational efficiencies, such as one-click software and policy updates, centralized reporting, and a single licensing and maintenance program.

"We wanted a solution that could be remotely deployed and centrally managed," said Shane Mers, Systems Team Supervisor, Berry Plastics Corp. "Because Symantec Endpoint Protection integrates essential security technologies in a single agent and management console, we no longer have to visit our various offices to configure and update the software on individual machines."

Berry Plastics worked with Symantec platinum channel partner Creative Breakthroughs to deploy Symantec Endpoint Protection remotely using Altiris Client Management Suite from Symantec, which Berry Plastics uses to reduce support and maintenance costs by deploying standardized, corporate approved, hardware-independent images.

Now one employee can administer endpoint security for the global operation, and the company has not experienced any damage from viruses or malware since the deployment in September 2009. Additionally, Symantec Endpoint Protection client requires one-third of the RAM of the previous security solution resulting in a threefold systems performance improvement.

Reliable Backups, Reduced Storage Space
Berry Plastics has also turned to Symantec to solve its data protection challenges. Berry recently upgraded to Symantec Backup Exec 2010 at its main data center for local backups, which enables the company to perform hot, non-disruptive backups of email and databases.

The company is also deploying Symantec NetBackup with NetBackup PureDisk deduplication to all of its remote locations. Backup data at remote locations is now deduplicated and compressed locally, then transferred over the WAN to a central PureDisk server. This allows Berry to store more backup data per terabyte of disk space and use less capacity when backing the data up to tape for disaster recovery purposes.

Being able to centrally manage remote office backups has improved and helped save around 5,200 hours a year in staff time, which translates to up to $130,000 per year saved in staff time available for more valuable tasks.

"We’re seeing a deduplication ratio of around 50 percent, and we’re using 50 percent less tape," said Mers. "Because backup data is now sitting on disk, our recoveries are faster and more reliable because recovering an offsite tape is no longer required. We’re now able to restore data for users in minutes, whereas before it could have taken a full business day."