RODALE. Speeding backups and reducing costs with integrated EMC backup
and recovery solution. ESSENTIALS. Business Challenge. •. Transition to web- ...
RODALE Speeding backups and reducing costs with integrated EMC backup and recovery solution OVERVIEW Rodale is the authoritative source for trusted content in health, fitness, and wellness, reaching more than 70 million people worldwide through its media properties, trade books, and online subscription properties.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE With the business transitioning from print to web-based publishing, Rodale’s data storage requirements have been doubling every 18 months in recent years, pushing its previous tape-based backup infrastructure to the brink. Alex Skovronek, Rodale’s IT Manager, explains, “Everything is digital now, and it all
ESSENTIALS Business Challenge •
24 hours and we had poor visibility into whether they were successful." “Restoring from tape could take a whole day,” he adds. “Obstacles to data access
Transition to web-based
could risk disrupting production schedules and our customers’ online experience.”
publishing driving exponential
EMBRACING A COMPREHENSIVE BACKUP AND RECOVERY
data growth •
has to be protected. As our digital assets grew, backups were barely completing in
Backup windows approaching 24 hours
Solutions
SOLUTION To transform its backup and recovery capabilities, Rodale implemented EMC® Data Domain® deduplication storage systems with EMC Data Domain Boost, and EMC NetWorker® unified backup and recovery for managing the environment. This
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EMC Data Domain
integrated solution protects Rodale’s entire physical and virtual infrastructure,
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EMC Data Domain Boost
including Microsoft Exchange, Oracle, MySQL, North Plains Digital Asset
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EMC NetWorker
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EMC VNX
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Microsoft Exchange, Oracle, MySQL, North Plains Digital Asset Management, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Apache web servers
Results • • •
Data Domain. Data Domain systems are deployed in Rodale’s primary and remote data centers, as well as a co-location facility. Data is retained onsite for 90 days in the primary data center and replicated to the remote and co-location facilities across distances of 20 to 100 miles for long-term protection. Skovronek says, “The support and guidance we get from EMC have been
Decreased Oracle database
exceptional. We highly value their understanding of data backup and our systems,
backups from 18 to two hours
along with their ability to quickly analyze issues and answer our questions.”
Accelerated restores from 24
Rodale’s integrated backup and recovery solution is part of a comprehensive EMC
hours to less than one hour
infrastructure, which includes EMC VNX® unified storage. The company is virtualizing
Saved $7,200 annually from
its server environment with VMware® vSphere™.
reduction of tape, with $12,000 annual savings projected •
Management, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Apache Web servers. Rodale uses Oracle Recovery Manager (RMAN) with NetWorker to back up its Oracle databases to
Recovered 12 to 15 percent of data center space
CUSTOMER PROFILE
SLASHING BACKUP TIMES AND TAPE COSTS By leveraging Data Domain inline deduplication and network-efficient replication, Rodale has reduced backup storage requirements by 14 times and reduced WAN bandwidth consumption. “We used to have more than 750 terabytes of backup data that traversed our network in any six-month period,” says Skovronek. “Now, by deduplicating with Data Domain and Data Domain Boost, we have reduced that by 70 percent to less than 225 terabytes over the same six-month period, saving a tremendous amount on network bandwidth.” Deduplication made it much easier for Rodale to replicate backup data and reduce reliance on tape, saving $7,200 spent for tapes, tape maintenance, and off-site tape storage. The company expects to completely eliminate tape within a year, which will increase tape-related savings to $12,000 annually.
“When we had multiple backup solutions, it took a lot more time and effort to be sure backups completed. With NetWorker and Data Domain, we’re seeing a 99 percent success rate with little to no hands-on effort. The operation is seamless.” Alex Skovronek IT Manager at Rodale
Skovronek also explains the performance improvements enabled by Data Domain Boost. “One of our Oracle databases took 18 hours to back up,” he recalls. “By using Data Domain Boost, NetWorker, and Oracle RMAN, we’ve reduced the backup time to just two hours.” In addition, full backups in Rodale’s co-location facility now complete in 7.5 hours instead of nearly 24 hours as before, eliminating the impact on production servers during business hours.
ACCELERATING RESTORES FROM ONE DAY TO ONE HOUR Data Domain systems have also accelerated restores dramatically—from a day or more to under an hour. “In the publishing business, there are always deadlines lurking, so any delay in restoring data can have a severe impact,” Skovronek notes. “Before, we had to wait up to a day for tapes to be retrieved and shipped. Now with Data Domain, as soon as we submit a restore request to the technical staff, they have the data right then and there, which helps everyone stay on schedule.”
SHRINKING THE DATA CENTER FOOTPRINT 12 TO 15 PERCENT Since deploying Data Domain with EMC VNX unified storage, Rodale has recovered 12 to 15 percent of the physical space in its data center, while also reducing energy consumption.
“We’ve eliminated four archiving storage and disk library cabinets by moving to Data Domain and VNX storage,” reports Skovronek. “Not only did we cut our power consumption significantly, we gained back ports on our network switches because we only have the Data Domain to plug in. That’s infrastructure we’re now able to use elsewhere.”
SIMPLIFYING BACKUP AND RECOVERY MANAGEMENT With NetWorker, Rodale simplified backup and recovery management thanks to centralized, automated control across all three of its data centers. In addition, the NetWorker integration with Data Domain provides valuable insight into backup performance, utilization, and capacity. “NetWorker provides us with much more visibility into the entire backup environment,” says Skovronek. “We know at a glance how much data is being backed up, what kind of pre- and post-compression rates we’re getting—all sorts of statistics that help us plan more accurately to meet our future needs.”
TRANSFORMING DATA PROTECTION WITH A SINGLE-VENDOR SOLUTION Having a comprehensive, integrated backup and recovery solution from EMC provides Rodale with greater assurance that its digital assets are well protected without taxing the IT staff. “When we had multiple backup solutions, it took a lot more time and effort to be sure backups completed,” remarks Skovronek. “With NetWorker and Data Domain we’re seeing a 99 percent success rate with little to no hands-on effort. The operation is seamless.” He continues, “Any time you’re working with more than one vendor it gets complicated. Before, when we used a third-party backup solution, we had someone additional on our staff to work with them. Now we have just one individual overseeing backup and recovery for all three data centers.”
CONTACT US To learn more about how EMC products, services, and solutions can help solve your business and IT challenges, contact your local representative or authorized reseller—or visit us at www.EMC.com.
EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, Data Domain, NetWorker, and VNX are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. VMware and vSphere are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc., in the United States and other jurisdictions. © Copyright 2012 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA. 06/12 Customer Profile H10810
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EMC believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice.
