Forum Energy Technologies Selects Certeon

Unplanned downtime is one of the top issues facing enterprises, according to a recent report from Gartner, and this is especially true for storage managers. Forum Energy Technologies Inc. is using data replication and backup to combat this problem and deploying Certeon Inc.‘s aCelera Sync solution to reduce replication times by up to 86 percent, at a lower TCO than competitor solutions, especially hardware-based appliances.

Forum Energy Technologies (FET), a global energy provider of manufactured and applied products, chose aCelera Sync after evaluating three hardware-based Wide Area Network Optimization vendor solutions. FET selected Certeon because it was able to slash the company’s replication window times from seven days to less than one day. aCelera costs up to 50 percent less than the other hardware-based evaluated solutions, and Certeon offered a superior level of support and interaction.

FET operates its corporate data center locally in Texas with a disaster recovery nearly 1000 miles away, using a Dell EqualLogic PS5000 SAN. Replicating 300 Gigabytes of data per week took FET storage administrators up to seven days before installing Certeon’s aCelera Sync solution. After the quick installation at both locations, FET was able to back up its critical data in less than one day, resulting in a decrease in the risks associated with lost data – all without buying additional bandwidth.

"With aCelera Sync, all of our critical data is now being replicated on a daily basis, and we even have enough available bandwidth to push more data to the recovery site if we need to," said Sean Barnes, IT Infrastructure Manager, Forum Energy Technologies. "Being able to selectively replicate critical volumes every few hours is a major improvement from the full week it was taking before. And, with Certeon, everything just worked. It was a set-it and forget-it type deal that exceeded all our expectations."

The cost of unplanned downtime resulting from recovery points that are infrequent and replications that are incomplete or failed can cost enterprises millions of dollars per hour of lost data. Many companies assume more bandwidth will solve backup problems allowing them to create more frequent recovery points, but it doesn’t. aCelera Sync is designed to overcome these hurdles and enable enterprises like FET to achieve Recovery Time and Recovery Point objectives, backing up critical assets more often and recovering data more easily.

"As businesses add disk-based offsite replication to their DR planning, ever increasing amounts of critical data is flooding the corporate WAN, decreasing recovery point frequency and under cutting an enterprise’s business continuity strategy. Businesses are literally drowning in data," said Peter Dougherty, President and CEO, Certeon. "The FET use case demonstrates how Certeon’s aCelera Sync virtual appliance can enable companies to successfully deploy and run replications and backups more frequently and for less cost than competitor solutions and reduce the risk of unplanned downtime. We were excited to help FET realize immediate results, reduce risk and control their costs."

aCelera virtual appliance software is architected as a software only solution, built to reduce response time, increase scalability and lower IT application service costs. aCelera Sync software, delivers a flexible and low cost solution that simultaneously allows increased backup and replication frequency while lowering network bandwidth requirements for the business continuity market. The solution also enables IT and storage managers to increase the coverage of their remote business continuity environments and eliminate the costs and risks of off-site tape transport and storage.

Certeon’s aCelera Sync optimizes the value of industry backup and replication solutions, including, but not limited to, products from Compellent, Dell EqualLogic CommVault, Double-Take, EMC, FalconStor, LeftHand, Network Appliance and Symantec.