Gynecological Oncology Group Opts for Backup Exec 2012

Symantec Corporation announced that the Gynecological Oncology Group‘s Statistical and
Data Center (GOG SDC), one of the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) funded
cooperative cancer research groups, now has 30 times more backup capacity
efficiency and combined protection across physical and virtual environments.

Symantec Backup Exec 2012’s new user interface lets GOG SDC set up and
configure backups across physical and virtual machines, deduplicate the
backups, and convert physical server backups to VMware or Hyper-V virtual
machines for instant recovery.

"The newest version of
Backup Exec delivers confidence in our mixed physical and virtual environment.
We can restore data to either platform, and the improved management interface
has helped cut tape management to less than 10 minutes a day," said
Scott Gould, GOG senior network and systems analyst. "This is a valuable efficiency that lets the GOG spend more time on our
core purpose: curing cancer through clinical trials."

The GOG has conducted more than 700 clinical trials related to
gynecological cancers since its founding in 1970. More than 10,000 GOG members
at 700 institutions collaborate on GOG’s clinical trial protocol design and
data collection.

"Our data center is all
about cancer research, a mission as rewarding as it is critical," Gould
said. "We must deploy the best
methods to protect the critical information that comes through the GOG, and
every penny saved through increased storage efficiency frees up more money for
discovering a cure. At the same time, we require simple management and Backup
Exec 2012 is the most flexible and unified platform we’ve seen."

The GOG SDC runs a cluster of four virtual hosts running around 40
VMware machines – servers running a variety of databases and statistical
analysis packages – and a 10TB SAN. Their previous backup system wasn’t able
to handle the mixed physical and virtual systems efficiently. In early 2012,
Gould and the GOG SDC team participated in beta testing for Backup Exec 2012
V-Ray Edition. As a result, Gould decided to acquire a backup server and dedicated disk storage for backup data, and deployed the beta
software on production data in the SDC.

Backup Exec 2012 also maximized deduplication efficiency. The SDC
reduced 104,000GB of backup data into one 3,500GB deduplicated storage
folder. "We’re very impressed with
the deduplication capabilities of Backup Exec, which have dramatically reduced
storage requirements – saving us valuable time and money," said Gould.