M&I Materials Selecting Vision Solutions

Vision Solutions, Inc. announced that
specialty materials manufacturer M&I
Materials Ltd is using Vision Solutions Double-Take Availability to ensure
the BC of its applications and data.

Virtual Data Centre Services
Limited (virtualDCS), a Leeds-based cloud computing and services firm, is
providing the solution via TGC
Computers Ltd, M&I Materials IT partner and provider as
part of its local recovery appliance product.

Using Double-Take Availability, M&I Materials’ important
applications and data can now be replicated in real time from their production
systems over to the local recovery appliance. This provides secondary copies of
the company’s applications including Infor Syteline, Exchange for
email, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint, which are hosted across a mix of
physical and virtual machines.

In the event of a disaster affecting any of the company’s production servers,
the secondary virtual machines hosted on the local recovery appliance can
provide up-to-date and running versions of these applications with little or no
impact on the day-to-day running of the business.

Following the successful implementation of local BC, M&I will be
expanding its DR strategy through working with TGC Computers and virtualDCS.
This will be carried out later this summer when the server images hosted on the
local recovery appliance will be replicated to one of virtualDCS’ data centres,
allowing the firm to run a complete workplace recovery strategy.

Jeff Robinson, IT manager at M&I Materials, said: "M&I Materials needed a solution that
would dramatically reduce the company’s recovery time and provide a robust
business continuity plan following our move to a virtual system. The biggest
sticking point we faced was finding a product that took into account the firm’s
mixed physical and virtual server environment. We decided to work with TGC
Computers and virtualDCS as they offered a pragmatic, cost-effective solution
that resolved our specific mixed environment needs based on their local
appliance and Double-Take."

Ian Masters, sales director, Northern Europe, at Vision Solutions,
said: "For many companies that
virtualise their servers, they are not able to move all their applications and
services over to virtual machines. This mixed environment requires a BC plan
that takes both physical and virtual servers into account. By using one tool to
protect both sets of servers, organisations can protect their critical data in
real-time and cut the cost of implementing BC."

Tim Evans, MD of TGC Computers, said: "After speaking with M&I Materials we decided to propose the
virtualDCS CloudCover service, as we felt it was the best possible solution to
reduce the time taken to recover their critical applications and data. Using
this solution we delivered the company with a time-sensitive solution that met
their specific DR requirements."