Australia’s STW Group Selects CommVault Simpana

STW Communications Group Ltd, an Australia marketing communications group, comprising more than 70 marketing, media, advertising, public relations and digital communications firms, is deploying Simpana software from CommVault to deliver a scalable, centralised backup and recovery solution, utilizing SnapProtect technology to increase compliance and content management capabilities.

Representing companies and brands including BMW, Myer, IBM, Coca-Cola, American Express and St George Bank, STW Group manage amounts of data-intensive digital images and video content for its clients and estimate annual data growth of up to 50 percent.

With CommVault’s data management approach, STW Group is poised to better manage 120TB of mission-critical data, while meeting its member companies’ escalating demands for recovery and longer-term retention of vital artwork archives and project files.

Looking to improve efficiencies and establish a foundation for growth, STW Group turned to CommVault’s approach to backup and archive which works with STW’s NetApp FAS 3240 storage system. Using Simpana software to drive the process, STW creates multiple recovery points for its Microsoft Exchange and VMware environments to improve service levels for recoverability, maximise the effectiveness of existing storage hardware investments, and reduce business risk.

By switching to Simpana software, STW Group is replacing several legacy data protection platforms that didn’t meet the company’s requirements for increased data security. CommVault technology will enable the company to compete effectively for new business by exceeding the requirements for the stringent data protection and availability legislation around financial and healthcare information, which is a prerequisite to winning and sustaining clients in these sectors. According to STW Group, these were some of the most business benefits of the unified CommVault Simpana platform.

The combination of Simpana software, NetApp and Cisco’s FlexPod data center solution are the core components of a shared services infrastructure that provides the additional performance and flexibility for STW to keep pace with growth at 40 percent lower cost than an alternative outsourcing arrangement.

STW anticipates that Simpana software’s single pane of glass management will streamline a two-phase data consolidation effort, first encompassing 1,200 users across 12 sites in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. In particular, CommVault’s embedded source-side deduplication was a major consideration in STW’s overall design as improved efficiencies were sought when performing backups over the WAN.

This implementation, which is being led by VMtech, a NetApp and CommVault integrator, will be followed by a second rollout involving 1,800 users across multiple locations throughout Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region.

According to STW, Simpana software’s functionality, including deduplication, archive with content indexing and storage resource management, will fuel increased operational efficiencies while offering a view of its environment for improvements in proactive data management. Archiving also was a decision factor as the company retains client files and images for up to seven years as part of information governance best practices.

Moreover, STW Group can change scope, scale and protection methods using CommVault’s capacity licensing model; the company predicts this flexibility will be beneficial in forecasting future costs of data growth.

Tom Ceglarek, CIO, STW Communications Group, said: "At a high level, we want to reduce our exposure to data loss to one hour and we could make this happen with the combination of CommVault and NetApp technology. If we have a sudden need for more space or a different set-up or experience a disaster, we will be ready. Our new infrastructure will take out the uncertainties, so we’ll be able to predict what we need resource-wise with 100 percent confidence. Flexibility and security were major considerations as we are responsible for our client data and must know at all times where it is and where it’s going. With such rapid data growth, we don’t really know how the business will grow next, but we now have the flexibility and functionality to face whatever comes up."