Kineto Wireless Lowers Offsite Server Backup Costs

Zetta.net (Zetta, Inc.) announced that mobile software company Kineto Wireless, Inc. reduced monthly server backup costs 50% by migrating from tapes and backup software to Zetta.net DataProtect, an enterprise cloud backup and DR solution.

The savings were realized by decreasing both OpEx and CapEx costs. Time was saved as well by reducing the need to move, manage, store, and package tapes.

With 30 servers housing 3.5TB of data – consisting of two dozen databases including a 600GB SharePoint database and a large amount of unstructured data -, Kineto needed to find a lower cost and more time-efficient way to do server backup. The organization also needed to ensure minimized downtime and around-the-clock access to its server backup data for employees in different time zones.

Kineto’s tape backup system was no longer meeting the company’s needs, due to high archiving and maintenance costs, and lowered productivity due to time spent changing tapes manually. When the organization’s previous tape backup solution was discontinued, Kineto was eager to identify a more efficient alternative, yet wanted to avoid investing in new software licenses or hardware.

Kineto’s existing tape backup solution was obsolescing.

“Any new on-site backup solution would have to be a ‘forklift’ upgrade – all new hardware,” said Steve Robey, director of IT and facilities, Kineto. “That reinforced my goal for a new enterprise backup solution that didn’t involve investment in new hardware, and also for one that would dramatically reduce the demands on my time just to get routine backups done.”

After comparing several enterprise cloud backup solutions, Kineto selected Zetta.net’s cloud-based backup and DR system.

“The financial and time calculations to switch from tape to Zetta.net was a no-brainer,” said Robey. “Its package price includes support, so there wouldn’t be any additional annual maintenance, service, or support costs. Plus, since Zetta.net’s cloud-based solution already provides offsite server backup, we wouldn’t have to worry about rotating tapes offsite for protection against local site events.”

With Zetta.net, Kineto’s overall monthly costs for backup are now 50% lower.

After visiting the web site of Zetta.net and starting a free trial, Kineto finished migrating at a rate of about 10 servers per week. Soon after, the company had a chance to see Zetta.net in action when multiple HDDs failed in a RAID configuration.

“We were able to use Zetta.net for DR – rapidly and efficiently, with no loss of data,” said Robey. “And since it happened over a weekend, we had barely any downtime, nobody really even noticed – except for me. In terms of IT budget, my time, and DR capability, we’re light-years ahead of where we’d been.“