Introduction
The British Red Cross is a nonprofit organization with 222 offices across the United Kingdom.
The central office houses the main computer center, with 80 Windows, SUSE Linux and Novell
Open Enterprise Server (OES) servers. GroupWise is used as the mail system. Two other data
centers house the PeopleSoft financial systems and the call center systems. Of the remaining
remote offices, 70 have Novell OES servers for files and GroupWise e-mail, while the rest have
only Windows-based PCs.
The Challenge
The Red Cross’ backup infrastructure was becoming increasingly problematic. Backup at the
central office was exceeding the backup window, even using an approach that allowed for the
backup of a server to multiple tape drives. This multi threading approach using EMC NetWorker
for backup had helped the organization meet backup windows historically, but resulted in long
recovery times because the files had to be pieced together from portions of multiple tapes.
Backup of the remote servers was also a problem. The existing approach was to use CA
ARCserve to backup the files and e-mail to tape. However, because there were no skilled IT
professionals at the remote offices, the management of the tapes lacked discipline and often
resulted in problems in finding the right tape when a recovery was required. Disaster recovery for
remote office server data was identified as a concern that needed to be addressed. And on top of
all this, the amount of data that needed to be protected was growing, so the problem was
expected to continue and worsen.
Approach
As part of an upgrade of the organization’s computer systems, a new approach to backup,
recovery and disaster recovery was included in the project. The maintenance contract with EMC
for NetWorker support was up for renewal, and before signing up again, the Red Cross wanted to
modernize its approach to backup, with NetWorker or with another technology. The new design
required replacement of the tape backup approach with a disk-based solution that would send the
backup to the central office. The solution needed to accommodate the various bandwidth
constraints of remote office connections and support Novell NetWare/OES and GroupWise, as
well as Windows, SUSE and Red Hat Linux.
After talks with EMC, searching the Internet and attending local IT conferences, the Red Cross
chose Asigra Televaulting. Working with an Asigra reseller — Backup Technology — a set of
Asigra DS-Client servers were set up in the central office to handle local and remote backup to a
central DS-System. Each of the three data centers and remote offices has a system running
VMware and two virtual machines — one running Novell OES for local file and GroupWise
access, and one running Windows XP to run the Asigra DS-Client software. The DS-Client at the
remote offices is configured with 72GB of local disk storage so that a copy of the most current
backup can be kept for fast, local recovery needs. After the initial full backup is completed and
transmitted, only subfile block-level changes are transmitted to the DS-System vault at the central
site. This reduces traffic on the WAN. Global deduplication and compression reduce the amount
of disk space needed at the central site, with the added benefit of also reducing the cost of the
Televaulting license, which is priced by the amount stored at the central site. The data on the DSSystem
vault is replicated once a week to another remote site using rsync — an open-source
replication product. EMC NetWorker remained at the financial system site to protect the Oraclebased
PeopleSoft systems, because it was decided that the large amount of data involved made
that system an inappropriate candidate for remote backup over the WAN. The solution is being
used to backup a set of PCs in one office, but PC backup was not a goal for this project.
Results
With almost three full years of production use of the new design, the project has successfully met
and continues to meet all of its goals. Tape support requirements were eliminated for the local
offices, with the central site taking on the responsibility of managing the process and the data.
The help desk now has ready access to the data to speed recoveries. Moving to a disk-based
backup process with advanced features has allowed the central site to meet its backup windows,
improve its recovery speed and disaster recovery process, and allows for the management of the
process with the same staff, even as the number of servers and the amount of data has grown.
Critical Success Factors
The British Red Cross identified the following as key to the project’s success:
• Asigra’s Televaulting disk-based, block-level incremental approach to backup provided the necessary technology to support centralized backup from the remote offices without bandwidth issues becoming a problem.
• Client-side deduplication reduced backup bandwidth requirements and reduced the amount of disk space required at the central DS-System vault site. Because Asigra prices its product based on the amount of compressed space required for disk storage for the backup system, this space-efficient approach to data storage helps keep the cost of the software down.
• The agentless architecture — which required only one DS-Client (and no application specific clients) to be installed at the remote sites, and only on the backup servers at the central site — provided for ease of deployment, updating and the management of the backup system.
• Support for Novell NetWare/OES, SUSE and Red Hat operating-system environments, and the GroupWise application, eliminated many competitive options, with Asigra being one of the few vendors offering the needed technology to support the whole environment.
