German District of Lippe Using Two Quantum DXi With Veeam Software

Quantum Corp. announced Germany’s District of Lippe is using a combination of the company’s DXi deduplication appliances and Veeam availability solutions to protect its expansive virtual environment and manage increased data volumes, changes in supported services and evolving technology.

The streamlined backup and restore operation has benefited the entire organization, cutting the time needed for restoring files in half and leaving more time to support the rest of the IT infrastructure.

“The combination of DXi and Veeam is just ideal for us,” said Tim Veers, head of IT, District of Lippe. “Backup processes run reliably, and Veeam ensures that the VM servers are backed up every day, as required. We feel much more secure. The systems run soundly, we get good backup rates and we can retain more backup sets thanks to the very high deduplication rates.“

Protecting Data in Evolving Environment
The District of Lippe administers a range of vital services for 16 separate urban centers and a rural population, and the IT department manages over 1,500 separate end-user devices. The data sets the District generates and stores form a critical asset. As the District’s server environment evolved, data protection was a constant challenge, and restoring data was complex and time consuming.

Working with system integrator PMCS GmbH & Co. KG, the IT team initially installed two DXi systems for deduplication and replication – one in the central district office and a second, smaller appliance in a remote service training center. Backups were written to the first DXi by the legacy backup software nightly, and by day the backup set was replicated to the second appliance for off-site protection. Data in both locations was visible to the IT staff, and most restores were simple. However, the legacy backup application began to struggle with backing up VMs, and a year later Lippe’s IT department chose availability software by Veeam to address the problem. Eventually the team deployed Veeam Endpoint Backup to protect physical servers as well, for shorter backup windows and accelerated recovery.

Addressing the Growth Challenge
In 2014, the District of Lippe added the administration of public employment agencies to its list of responsibilities. Coupled with higher resolution images associated with mapping and geospatial work, data volumes nearly doubled overnight. The team could no longer complete nightly backups. As a result, the District added a larger DXi featuring higher capacity, faster throughput and expanded scalability. The system includes 15 physical servers and more than 180 VMs, and its data is used by over 1,500 separate end-user devices spread across more than 40 locations.

Backups to the DXi are completed nightly. Each morning, the backup is replicated to the other DXi in the main data center and to the remote site for DR protection. Servers located at the secondary site are also backed up locally, and copies are replicated to the main data center, so all of the data has multiple copies in different sites. In addition, the District uses a Quantum Scalar i500 tape library for the long-term retention component of their data protection strategy. The DXi provides deduplication rates of 29:1, and bandwidth savings up to 136:1, so the replication process usually takes less than 30 minutes. As a result of the streamlined backups and restores, the Lippe IT department can spend less time managing backups and more time tending to other IT support requirements for the organization.

“Organizations like the District of Lippe are coping with a shifting technical landscape that requires them to rethink how they store and protect data,” said Doug Hazelman, VP, product strategy, Veeam. “The combination of Veeam availability solutions and Quantum storage provides a scalable solution to maximize the value of digital assets over their entire lifecycle.“

“IT departments worldwide are challenged to maintain data availability for virtual environments,” noted Robert Clark, SVP, product operations, Quantum. “By combining Quantum disk with Veeam’s unique features, the District of Lippe has found a way to protect the growing data volumes of their VMs.“