Unique, guaranteed, disaster recovery service protects and fully restores IT firm’s working systems in 15 minutes – ensuring complete business continuity

Founded 21 years ago, Salmon is a highly innovative global systems integrator, with an ‘on-time, on-budget’ approach to the design, development, implementation and management of complex commerce based projects. Salmon’s services are increasingly embraced by the leading names in retail, insurance and the retail finance markets - including Swiss Re, Argos, Novae, Pets at Home, Boots and Halfords. Salmon prides itself on adding value to its customers’ day-to-day operations.

The continuity challenge

Being an IT services company, Salmon understand that a key factor in delivering good customer service is to ensure that IT systems remain uninterrupted. The company also appreciate that as well as the usual threats affecting IT operations, other incidents, such as power outages, fires or floods can prevent staff access to IT systems – and seriously damage the business.

Salmon originally employed an off-site data backup facility to provide IT systems recovery, in the event of an outage. However, restoring its systems involved a lengthy manual rebuild and recovery process - which wasn’t ideal for business continuity. This potential downtime and loss of business was not an option for Salmon’s 200 staff members, whose focus is on delivering customer projects.

After an internal IT review, Salmon’s disaster recovery (DR) approach was therefore deemed expensive, with limited capabilities. Salmon wanted the ability to bounce back almost instantly if any type of disastrous incident occurred.

This meant that the company needed a leading-edge, DR system in place that could provide near immediate access to working recovery systems, from any location. The DR service also needed to be cost-effective, simple to use and highly flexible.

Finding the perfect DR solution

Salmon had been in the process of migrating its systems, using VMware technology, to a virtual environment and liked the idea of capitalising on virtualisation for their DR. However, they also felt that outsourcing the DR capability to a specialist would provide a higher level of responsibility and be more cost effective.

Salmon reviewed a number of services and decided that Plan B offered a clear best fit for their requirements. A key factor in favour of Plan B being chosen was their extensive experience of making systems work in a new environment and their unique process that continually tests recovery systems are working and guarantees restoration in minutes – after an outage.

Plan B offered a compelling 30 day free trial involving the initial protection of three severs supporting Active Directory and Exchange systems. To set this up, Plan B’s intelligent snapshotting appliance was plugged into Salmon’s network, where it automatically takes copies of the IT systems - without any need for further IT staff assistance or disruption. The image copies are then sent securely to a Plan B data centre, where they are processed to run on their own network as fully functioning, interdependent machines.

The newly created system images (rescue images) are automatically tested by Plan B to guarantee that, in the event of a system outage, they will boot up without trouble and the critical operational systems will be quickly available for immediate use.

As part of the trial, Salmon were able to carry out a full test invocation of their recovery systems. The Exchange environment took under 15 minutes to boot up and Salmon were then able access the systems, via a VPN, and test every aspect to ensure they were fully working copies of their live servers.

Following this success, the Plan B service was expanded to protect nine of Salmon’s servers that run its critical operations including, call centre, email, file servers, HR and accounts applications.

Major benefits

Jeff Leaver, COO at Salmon said, “The Plan B system is simple to set up and requires minimal input to keep the service working. We are pleased that we now have a great DR system in place and are enjoying the peace of mind this brings. Invocation is a phone call away and Plan B’s support staff are highly experienced and very helpful.”

Salmon’s business systems are now protected by the DR service and the company has a best practice approach to ensuring comprehensive business continuity for its operations. The company is now assured that its staff can respond and recover from incidents as quickly and effectively as possible.

Leaver concluded, “Being an IT services company, technology is our business and having a best practice DR system is important for our customers, especially as it helps us deliver an excellent, consistent service. We are now confident that we have a DR system that enables us to experience business as usual - even if we experience a major IT outage. The Plan B service is fantastic - it really works, is very cost effective and represents superb value for money.”

http://www.salmon.com

100% guaranteed, disaster recovery (DR) service employed at CAFOD’s new office replaces charity’s twin site data backup operation

CAFOD is the official Catholic aid agency for England and Wales. In more than 40 countries across the world, the agency brings hope, compassion and solidarity to poor communities, standing side by side with them to end poverty and injustice.

CAFOD raises funds from the Catholic community in England and Wales, the UK government and the general public. These resources fund development programmes, which help to lift people out of poverty and improve living standards. In emergencies, the agency provides immediate, life-saving relief and stay on to help people rebuild their lives.

The DR refresh challenge

Being an international charity, CAFOD need efficient and available IT systems to support its international fund raising activities - as well as donor and partner communications. The agency was well aware of the threats that could negatively impact the smooth running of its IT operations.

To address any potential downtime, CAFOD’s original DR consisted of system replication at its two South London offices – each employing Data Domain for backup. However, in the event of a major outage affecting these sites, the restoration of the charity’s systems involved a lengthy manual rebuild and recovery process - which wasn’t ideal for business continuity.

CAFOD’s planned move to a brand new, Central London office prompted them to consider a new DR method that could operate effectively on a single site. Being a charity also meant that cost was an important factor – without compromising on quality of service. CAFOD wanted the most modern, simple to use and flexible, DR system – that could deliver near immediate access to working recovery systems – from any location.

Finding high quality DR at best price

CAFOD first talked to Plan B at a trade show and felt that the Plan B Service offered an excellent fit for their requirements. Key factors in choosing Plan B were their proven track record, almost instant systems recovery guarantee and highly competitive costs – involving a generous charity discount.

Plan B provided a free initial trial period allowing CAFOD’s IT team to assess how effectively they could replicate and protect the charity’s 12 severs, supporting critical operational systems including mail, CRM, accounts and databases.

To set this up, Plan B’s intelligent snapshotting appliance was plugged into CAFOD’s network, and set up to automatically take snapshot copies of the charity’s IT systems. The system snapshots are then securely transferred to a Plan B data centre, where they are processed and reconfigured to run in the Plan B virtual environment as fully functioning systems - with identical functionality to the live servers.

The newly created system images (rescue images) are automatically updated every night and tested by Plan B to ensure that they can always be booted immediately - in the event of a disastrous loss of CAFOD’s live systems. As a result, Plan B guarantee CAFOD’s recoveries to be available within a specific number of minutes.

Once set up, CAFOD carried out a full test invocation to evaluate the service and check the functionality of each recovery server. The Charity was able to access their systems, via a VPN, in minutes and check every server and application worked in exactly the way they expected. This protection, enabled CAFOD to confidently migrate servers to their new site – with the peace of mind that their critical services were protected by Plan B.

Key benefits

Paul Hayward, infrastructure manager at CAFOD said, “Plan B are great people to work with and have provided us with an easy to use DR system that keeps working in the background - requiring almost no management from us. Invocation is only a phone call away and Plan B’s support staff are reassuringly experienced and very helpful.”

CAFOD’s systems are now protected by the DR service that employs a best practice approach to ensuring comprehensive business continuity for its operations. The agency now can recover from incidents as quickly and effectively as possible and continue its essential charity work - without delays.

Hayward concluded, “We are confident that with Plan B on board we have a DR system that will protect our operations and ensure business continuity – if we suffer any outages. The Plan B service really works, and has a very competitive price point - making it great value for money.”

www.cafod.org.uk