MSP My IT Opts for AppAssure Replay 4

AppAssure Software announced that My IT, a New Orleans-based Managed Service Provider (MSP), has consolidated its backup processes with Replay 4.

My IT is now able to ensure continuous data protection for Windows servers, data recovery to standby Hyper-V and VMware virtual machines, and RPO/RTO after replacing multiple, inconsistent products with one comprehensive backup and disaster recovery solution, Replay 4.

When in 2005 one of the deadliest and costliest hurricanes in U.S. history ripped through the Gulf Coast and devastated New Orleans, La. (NOLA) in a matter of days, My IT President and CEO, David Bourgeois had, unfortunately, a front-row seat for the disaster.

Bourgeois and his 11 staff members had over 40 active clients for whom they were responsible when Katrina hit. "Right after Katrina, all our clients needed their data ASAP," explains Bourgeois. "Many of our clients were doing tape backups and all the tapes were offsite. But no one could get back into NOLA with the information. Recovery got very complicated."

Not only that, but Bourgeois and his overworked staff also were faced with at least 12 different types of client tape drives. "Tape is good for files," says Bourgeois, "but to recover a whole server, it’s miserable. You really actually rebuild, not restore. Also, we found that tape has too high a failure rate. The most current versions weren’t always there and we had to go really far back. Sometimes we were looking at a 40% failure rate."

The experience shook up Bourgeois so much that he decided to ditch tape and get his clients on Backup 2.0 imaging software. "We tested Acronis and started to feel better-at first," says Bourgeois. "We used a combination of things to achieve complete backup and disaster recovery of clients’ data," Bourgeois explains. "We used (1) Kaseya BUDR (Acronis) to image a server for a good backup/disaster recovery of it; (2) Microsoft Backup to get the Exchange database backup and logs flushed; (3) Microsoft SQL backup to get SQL backed up nightly; and (4) Microsoft Active Directory to backup weekly to disk, with Acronis backing this job up." It was four non-integrated products which Bourgeois’s team spent more and more time managing.

"We thought that disk imaging would solve our horrible tape problems," notes Bourgeois, "but we still had slowness."

Learning that not all disk imaging products were the same, Bourgeois identified the list of what he was looking for:

• full off-site backups
• reliable verification that backups were working
• an integrated backup process for servers and desktops
• deduplication/compression
• granular restores
• continuous data protection to eliminate the backup window
• recovery options to physical or virtual servers

"There are two parts of this equation," says Bourgeois. "One is backup and the other is disaster recovery. For backups, the verification of the data, especially in backing up Exchange and SQL backups is a significant time saver for us. Also, backups do not ding workstations and servers. We can run full backups in the middle of the day and it won’t affect clients’ work flow."

Replay is changing the way Bourgeois is thinking about backups. Having reduced his RPO from roughly 24 hours to just one hour, his team is no longer stuck babysitting. "Comparing AppAssure with our previous imaging solutions in a 1-1 GB environment, Replay is 2x faster," says Bourgeois, "With Exchange, Replay just smokes them. It’s 4x faster."

As for the second half of the equation, Replay 4 gives My IT superior disaster recovery protection. "Replay is pretty cool Disaster Recovery Software," says Bourgeois. "We can do offsite replication with the data size connection that each client has. Also, we’re using Replay for Data Replication in some environments where our clients need this. Not only this, but we’re seeing an average of 25% storage savings with Replay’s dedupe/compression. Since we’re growing data this makes a huge difference."

While Bourgeois’s company didn’t lose any client data with Katrina, they came through it with just enough fear to know that they needed to be on solid ground with the backup and disaster recovery products they offered their clients. "We went from tape, to imaging, to Replay, because I’m a business owner and the #1 thing is, that as long as I have the client data – all is good. But if I can’t get that data, it can get ugly. By using Replay, we give them cutting-edge technology – it’s real-world tested and it’s solid."

Replay stands to play a bigger role in the growth of My IT. Bourgeois has just acquired another IT company with a project grow rate of 50%. "I plan to replace a lot of their backup products with AppAssure," says Bourgeois. "At the end of the day, no one beats Replay."