NAKIVO on NAS Helps a Manufacturer Save 40% on Backup Costs
Business Challenge
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, COZZINI, LLC. is a leading provider of meat and food processing equipment and related technology and services with offices in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, and Denmark. COZZINI expanded the product lineup with numerous products and professional services to offer the most complete line of solutions in the industry. The company offers products and services that can meet all of the food processing needs: preparation, reduction/emulsion systems, mixers, grinders, material handling systems, custom stainless fabrication, slicers, and much more.
With four sites across the United States, Mexico, and Europe, COZZINI’s virtual infrastructure consists of 10 ESXi hosts and at least 40 VMware VMs. VMware VMs store everything that relates to computing, including an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, a document management system for engineers, and file and print services. Computer systems are absolutely critical to maintain the daily business operations and the company cannot afford to lose information such as drawings that are used to design the food processing equipment. Moreover, an ERP system that runs everything from historical sales, orders, customers, and accounting must be available 24/7 in order to support the company’s manufacturing facilities to the fullest potential. Any kind of serious downtime or critical data loss can put the company out of business, that is why a reliable and fast VM backup solution is required to back up and recover data.
“Firstly, we were using another VM backup solution for quite some time, however, due to some budget limitations, the product did not cover all of our VMs, but only the most critical ones. At the same time, we were using a disk backup from our storage area network and other technics that were just too outdated. When our system administrator decided to leave the company, we thought that it was the perfect time to upgrade our data protection software and get a fresh prospective on how things were getting done. Since I wanted an opportunity to take a fresh look at our environment and I wanted a product that would cover all of our VMware VMs, I began a search for a dependable and fully featured VM backup solution that would not break our budget,” says Tony Alcaraz, Corporate Director of Information Systems at COZZINI LLC.
Solution
While checking the add-on packages available to expand the functionality of the Synology NAS servers, Tony came across NAKIVO Backup & Replication that was available right away for a download. After a demo and a trial period, NAKIVO Backup & Replication was purchased to protect the virtual environment at COZZINI LLC. “As of now, we have six Synology NAS servers and we are getting ready to use a couple of the servers for offsite backups also. Over the years, I have been dealing with Synology and had a positive experience because their servers are dependable, so when I found out that NAKIVO Backup & Replication can be installed on a Synology NAS, I was happy because it is just a perfect idea to combine hardware and software,” says Tony.
“I believe the integration with Synology NAS is what made us select NAKIVO Backup & Replication. The installation process was fantastic, extremely seamless, and had zero issues. I was impressed by the ease of use and the look of the user interface and did not even need to read the instructions in the first place. I enjoy the fact that both hardware and software integrate so well together and kind of talk to each other, and at the same time help us not to consume extra resources in our environment. Our primary goal was to set up backup jobs as quickly as possible and all was done in the easiest possible way,” says Tony.
With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, COZZINI LLC is now able not only to perform full VM backup, but can also take advantage of forever-incremental backup. With forever-incremental backup, all subsequent backup jobs transfer only changed data to the backup repository. Moreover, with the Grand-Father-Son (GFS) retention scheme, there is a possibility to keep recovery points from any period of time. “I have a group of VMs that I want to back up daily and a group that I want to back up on a monthly basis. With forever-incremental backup, backup jobs finish now anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. I constantly receive notifications and messages via email regarding backup job completion, so this gives me extra peace of mind,” says Tony.
The VM backup appliance based on Synology NAS not only performs regular VM backups, but also provides recovery features, such as instant VM recovery and instant file recovery. “We made several test recoveries for small VMs to ensure that they were recoverable. We managed to recover the entire VMs from their backups within seconds and the whole process was extremely easy. Instant file recovery will also be a useful feature for us in the future, as accidental file deletions can happen frequently,” says Tony.
Results
NAKIVO Backup & Replication installed on a Synology NAS protects the virtual environment at COZZINI LLC and enables the company to back up and recover VMware VMs efficiently. With forever-incremental backup, backup jobs finish in under 30 minutes and instant VM recovery takes seconds to complete. In the nearest future, the company is also planning to send copies of VM backups offsite for an extra protection from ransomware.
“The ability to create a VM backup appliance by installing NAKIVO Backup & Replication directly on a Synology NAS was the best decision ever. The biggest benefits right now that we see are the value, simplicity, and the ease of use and configuration. The simplification of the disaster recovery process is an additional advantage. For me personally, it is important to not be spending half of my working day on backup administration, since many other things are going on in our environment. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, I definitely saved my personal time and, at the same time, our company managed to save the VM backup costs by 40% while switching to NAKIVO Backup & Replication,” says Tony.
About COZZINI LLC.
Established in 1975 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, COZZINI LLC. designs and manufactures food processing equipment. As of 2010, COZZINI LLC. operates as a subsidiary of Middleby Corporation. Over time, COZZINI has evolved from the corner shop heritage to that of an ongoing business partner. Today, the company’s professional expertise and ability to share information and work together across multiple locations makes COZZINI a more powerful company that can make any business more productive. The company offers food preparation products, reduction/emulsion systems, post-pasteurization products, data acquisition and product tracking systems, water cooking/cooling systems, material handling equipment, meat grinding equipment, mixing/blending and massaging products, pumps and stuffers, separating/de-clipping products, and slicers; and advisory, installation, and training services. For more information, please visit cozzini.com.