Leading Manufacturer Picks NAKIVO for Data Storage Optimization
Business Challenge
The FAMUR Group is the largest manufacturer of mining machinery in Poland and one of the largest in the world. FAMUR develops high-performance and reliable machines and equipment, primarily for the mining industry, but also for the transport, handling, and power industries. FAMUR’s machines and technologies are well known in many mines, ports, and industrial plants across the world. The FAMUR Group currently includes 37 companies and 11 production plants. The Group employs over 4,000 employees.
FAMUR’s main datacenter is located at its headquarters. This datacenter holds Famur’s servers, most of which are virtualized using VMware. At the headquarters, FAMUR has also another location to which it replicates all VMs from the main datacenter. In addition, the company has additional servers in five different locations across Poland and those servers are virtualized on Microsoft Hyper-V. FAMUR’s 336 virtual machines store the majority of the company’s applications (that support the manufacturing process), the company’s own applications, databases, mail servers, monitoring servers, Microsoft Active Directory servers, and other systems. Backup, recovery, and replication are critical because the company cannot afford to lose access to servers and data. Most critical VMs must be replicated to the secondary location, while restores must be performed on a weekly basis.
For a long time, FAMUR relied on another backup solution to protect their VMware and Hyper-V environments. The company also used one more software dedicated to data storage. The previous backup solution was difficult to use and could not be operated by just one person. When issues arose, those could only be solved by specialists from product support. Moreover, high maintenance costs were an issue for FAMUR, as the company wanted to reduce expenses. As FAMUR’s infrastructure expanded and data grew, the company decided to switch to a different backup solution that could be licensed per CPU and not based on the size of backups.
Solution
After testing several backup solutions offered by different vendors, FAMUR chose NAKIVO Backup & Replication to protect its VMware and Hyper-V environments. NAKIVO Backup & Replication is a robust solution that protects critical data and applications within various environments, including physical, virtual, and cloud. The solution was selected particularly for protecting VMware environment at FAMUR’s headquarters and Hyper-V environments at the company’s branches.
FAMUR benefited greatly from the versatility of NAKIVO Backup & Replication. The software can be installed on different operating systems and devices, including Windows and Linux and NAS, and as a pre-configured virtual appliance. “We installed a Director on Windows and installed Transporters on five QNAP NAS servers. Thus, from one main console, we can manage tasks in five other locations. What I value most is the possibility of installing a Transporter directly on a QNAP NAS server, as it allows us to quickly run a backup job in a new location. Thanks to this, we were able to save money,” says Waldemar Chrobok, IT Systems Administrator at FAMUR.
In terms of functionality, FAMUR takes advantage of VM backup, instant VM recovery, and instant granular recovery. “An initial full backup of our entire infrastructure was made in hours, while incremental backups are carried out in minutes. Instant VM recovery saves time when recovering a whole VM, especially those larger machines, an extremely vital feature. Instant granular recovery works quickly and gives several options for restoring a file or an object to servers or downloading them,” says Waldemar.
The previous backup solution did not allow FAMUR to increase the backup repository space without additional costs. “Previously, we were forced to shorten the retention period of our backups, as we could not optimize our storage space without paying additional money. When we switched to NAKIVO Backup & Replication, we no longer face this issue because we can connect any large backup repository and pay only for the processors of the backup hosts,” says Waldemar.
In addition, the previous backup solution was difficult to use, complicated, and could not be upgraded easily. “The previous solution could not be easily managed by just one person and required a team to maintain it. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, first, we saved a great deal of time on deploying and configuring the product, as well as saving time when running backup jobs. Moreover, the updates are very quick with NAKIVO Backup & Replication,” says Waldemar.
NAKIVO Backup & Replication is user-friendly and easy-to-use, with an intuitive web interface. Backups complete successfully and reporting provides FAMUR more visibility into their environments. For the IT team, there is no longer a need to constantly monitor backups and fix issues. “NAKIVO Backup & Replication helped us save time on backup administration in comparison to the previous product. Before, we had to deal with significant issues from time to time and we could not resolve them on our own. We had to frequently use the support service of that vendor,” says Waldemar.
Results
With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, FAMUR achieved robust data protection for critical data and applications. The company was able to optimize backup data storage space without investing additional resources. With the help of VM backup, instant VM recovery, and instant granular recovery, FAMUR was able to save time and increase the speed of backup and recovery. Moreover, the IT team now spends less time on backup administration with the help of intuitive web interface and easy upgrades. “With the previous solution, we would have to pay for additional storage space for our backups. We were also not able to connect an additional backup repository for our backups. The decision to pick NAKIVO Backup & Replication was greatly influenced by the ability to optimize storage space without incurring additional costs and we are happy with that decision,” says Waldemar.
About FAMUR
FAMUR is a leading European manufacturer and supplier of mining machinery and equipment. The main areas of FAMUR’s activity are underground and open-pit mining, transport, bulk material handling, and the power industry. FAMUR is an experienced manufacturer of technologically advanced and highly effective mining solutions, especially longwall systems, roadheader systems, underground transportation systems, and machinery for open-pit mining. The FAMUR Group is a part of TDJ S.A. It currently comprises 37 companies and 11 production plants. The Group employs more than 4,000 people. For more information, visit famur.com.