NAKIVO Helps Information Technology Company Safeguard Data with Backup to AWS

Switch Media, an information technology company from Australia, backs up business-critical data to AWS and saves 40% on backup costs with NAKIVO Backup & Replication.

www.switch.tv

Business Challenge

Since 2006, Switch Media has been successfully delivering complex, multi-award-winning solutions for major brands and live events worldwide, including the Olympics and Game of Thrones.  Switch Media’s client base includes FOXTEL, SBS, the ABC, Fox Sports, Network Ten, Freeview AU, Freeview NZ, Yahoo7, the Australian Federal Parliament, Fairfax Media and RMIT. The company is privately owned and is growing annually by 50%.

Switch Media operates out of two sites, with 600 virtual machines at each site. Virtual machines store application servers that are needed for video creation, ingestion, publishing, management, syndication, engagement, monetization and analysis. Multiple types of applications and customer’s databases are hosted on the company’s servers, and everything must be protected and always available. Investing in a reliable VM backup solution is critical for the company to ensure data availability. Switch Media cannot afford to lose data, as the company will incur huge costs to recreate the data from scratch in case of a disaster. The negative consequences of any kind of disaster are wasted resources, lost customers and interrupted production.

Over the years, Switch Media had tried and used multiple backup tools. However, the company repeatedly experienced failed backup jobs. Mostly, backup jobs were stuck forever with no ways to fix the situation. This was annoying for the company that has a large database load. Moreover, there were some issues with tech support, delayed responses and miscommunication. Complex and ever-changing licensing models had also been a pain point for Switch Media over the years. Previous backup tools did not offer cloud storage support either. So, the company had to store data locally as a temporary solution. In the end, Switch Media wanted a new VM backup solution that was affordable and provided backup-to-cloud functionality.

Solution

NAKIVO Backup & Replication stood out with affordable pricing and a rich feature set compared to the other vendors. On top of that, Switch Media received compatibility, performance and ease of use with the solution. NAKIVO Backup & Replication is designed specifically for virtualized environments and provides VM backup, replication, recovery and backup to cloud. Switch Media deployed NAKIVO Backup & Replication in its production several years ago, and, since then, the software product has been protecting the company’s data reliably. Moreover, Switch Media particularly values that there is no administration overhead with the software.

Switch Media installed and deployed NAKIVO Backup & Replication on bare metal Linux CentOS 7. “NAKIVO Backup & Replication is easy to deploy, has a user-friendly web interface, and we can manage all jobs and configurations with ease” says Victor Vidal, Service Delivery and Operations Manager at Switch Media.

Since it is essential for Switch Media to have fresh data, backup jobs are running 24/7. Backup jobs run fast and finish successfully, and there are no more hanging jobs that are there indefinitely. “Our aim was to eliminate failed jobs, and NAKIVO Backup & Replication helped us accomplish that. The backup speed is impressive, there is no need to wait for days just for daily backup jobs to complete,” says Victor. In addition, for Switch Media, the global data deduplication ratio is quite impressive, as the company saved themselves from wasting valuable time and resources.

Switch Media also takes advantage of network acceleration and backup copy functionality. “Network acceleration is quite beneficial for us because of heavy content from videos, graphics, and other materials. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, we have considerably reduced network traffic,” says Victor. Since the company has two sites with multiple physical servers and virtual machines, backup copy comes in extremely handy. “With backup copy, we can create and manage multiple copies of our backups, and send them between our two sites,” says Victor.

Since NAKIVO Backup & Replication supports backup to Amazon Web Services (AWS), Switch Media saved money and increased their production times. NAKIVO Backup & Replication allows Switch Media to send backup copies to AWS, to safeguard business-critical data in case of a local incident or disaster. “By having three copies of our backups stored onsite, offsite, and in the cloud, we can certainly stop worrying about ransomware and other incidents,” says Victor.

Results

With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, Switch Media eliminated the recurring issue of constantly failing backup jobs, improved backup performance and reduced network traffic. With backup copy functionality, the company can create multiple backup copies and transfer them between their two sites. While with backup to AWS, Switch Media can safeguard their data from local incidents. “NAKIVO Backup & Replication supports AWS, and is user-friendly, fast, stable and affordable. We saved thousands over the years, and achieved nearly 40% cost savings. Thanks to the agentless solution, the operating system consumes less resources. Therefore, NAKIVO Backup & Replication is the best choice for us. Plus, we are impressed with seamless integration of NAKIVO Backup & Replication and AWS. This is top value for our money,” says Victor.

About Switch Media

For over a decade, Switch Media has been successfully delivering complex, multi-award-winning video solutions for major brands and live events worldwide, including the Olympics and Game of Thrones. The company’s world-class product suite, MediaHQ, houses a flexible suite of modular components that easily integrates with existing systems. Coupled with a powerful workflow engine, MediaHQ enables use of any or all capabilities to enhance, replace or launch an exceptional viewing experience. For more information, visit www.switch.tv.