Symphony Group Reduces RPO With Silver Peak

Symphony Group PLC, a UK privately-owned manufacturer of fitted kitchen, bedroom and bathroom furniture has deployed Silver Peak, Inc. WAN optimization software to improve the performance of offsite data replication and accelerate the transfer of large volumes of data between the company’s HQs and its remote data center more than 100 miles away.

Since deploying Silver Peak WAN optimization software, Symphony Group has reduced its recovery point to 20s.

Following a complete data center refresh last year, Symphony Group began to experience network performance issues between its main site in Barnsley and its DR location in Warwick. Using Veeam and IBM XIV storage, Symphony Group found that the data mobility between the sites was being limited by the 100Mb/s network bandwidth allowance, making itdifficult for the company to meet its RPOs. With budget constraints in mind, Symphony Group required an affordable solution that would allow them to meet their RPOs without needing to re-architect its existing network.

Symphony Group turned to technology consultancy, Krome Technologies Ltd, for a solution that would maximize replication throughput over the WAN. The company had tried and tested WAN optimization in the past, but this time it was different. Symphony Group chose to deploy the Silver Peak Velocity Replication Acceleration (VRX) software, which was purpose-built for storage replication and could scale to over 1Gb/s connections. In addition, Silver Peak integrated with Symphony Group’s existing IBM XIV and Veeam appliances, and offered a budget-friendly, flexible subscription pricing model.

“It is absolutely critical for our business operations that we are able to replicate data between our sites in a timely fashion,” said Ruth Rew, group IT manager, Symphony Group. “Before deploying Silver Peak, we carried out a data center refresh, which enabled us to asynchronously replicate all of our data to the DR site. However, this was essentially the grain of sand that tipped the scale. Our IT department could not move all of our data and achieve the RPO we required. Furthermore, the process was putting huge strain on our day to day business operations. Our main focus was to improve our RPO, which with Silver Peak’s software, has reduced dramatically from hours to justs.“

Since deploying Silver Peak, Symphony Group has been able to replicate 110GB of data per-hour between the two sites with no performance issues, enabling the company to meet its RPOs. The company is able to use its existing 100 Mbps connection more effectively, without the need for a costly re-architecture of the network, or any upfront financial costs.

“Faced with a tight budget, we simply weren’t prepared to completely tear down our existing network infrastructure; a process that would have been extremely expensive,” continued Rew. “Silver Peak’s subscription pricing model made the whole process a lot more financially viable. As soon as we put Silver Peak in, the results were almost instant.“

“We have always had a good relationship with Symphony Group, so it was not only important that we delivered a high performance solution for their data movement needs, but also a solution that was easy to install and manage,” said Dee Mager, marketing director, Krome. “While it can often be quite a daunting process for companies on a strict budget, many make the mistake of just throwing additional bandwidth at the problem. However, with the right guidance, Symphony Group has avoided this common mistake and implemented the Silver Peak solution to replicate more data in a shorter period of time, without breaking the bank.“