EVault Chosen by Desert Schools Federal Credit Union

i365 Inc., a Seagate company, announced that Phoenix-based Desert Schools Federal Credit Union, a top 30 U.S. credit union, replaced its former tape backup system with EVault Plug-n-Protect backup and recovery appliances via solution provider 3RP.

Desert Schools chose EVault over other backup and recovery options after determining that the credit union could no longer achieve its Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) using tape backup and was at risk of failing to meet compliance requirements set forth by the National Credit Union Association. The credit union also sought a vendor capable of bare metal restores and native encryption capabilities, which had previously been outsourced to a third party. EVault Plug-n-Protect appliances offered alternatives to tape backup.

Desert Schools has seen measurable results since implementing EVault solutions, with backup times decreasing across the board and improved IT department efficiency. The company’s file system backup, which formerly took 17 hours, now takes about 3.5 hours; the core banking application data, which previously took 37 hours to back up, now takes only three hours. The reduction in backup times has freed up the IT department’s time by more than 25 hours a month, and EVault services have significantly lowered costs associated with backups and restores.

"To comply with increasing regulatory requirements, ensure business continuity in the event of disaster, and make sure IT teams are as efficient as possible, the EVault solution was our first choice," says Gary Laieski, CIO, Desert Schools Federal Credit Union. "EVault now eases backup administration, eliminates tape backup rotations, and enables IT personnel to focus on other areas that impact business performance."

Desert Schools serves three of Arizona’s largest counties and has 392 servers running VMware, Windows and IBM i operating systems, as well as a variety of other financial applications working concurrently. Prior to adopting EVault, the credit union was reliant on tape backup and third party encryption technologies to cover nearly 12TB of confidential financial data. The credit union’s prior tape solution ultimately failed to meet RTO, leaving critical data at risk and Desert Schools potentially unprepared for compliance audits. 3RP recommended i365’s EVault Plug-n-Protect appliance as a way for Desert Schools to manage and replicate data both locally and securely via the EVault Cloud while also meeting Desert Schools’ RTO. When compared against similar market offerings, 3RP’S Solutions Architect, Scott Mellegaard, found that EVault offered a more comprehensive model that matched Desert Schools’ backup needs.

"We knew EVault was the best choice for Desert Schools, offering total reliability for data backup, native deduplication, AES encryption, delta-level replication, and bare metal recovery for all applications," said Mellegaard.