NAKIVO Optimizes Storage Space and Speeds Up VM Backup for a Software Company
Business Challenge
Founded in 1996, Statseeker was developed by network engineers who understood the importance of proactive monitoring. With active deployments in over 22 countries, many Fortune 100 firms consider Statseeker an integral part of their day-to -day operations, helping them isolate and resolve issues instantly. Statseeker has offices in San Diego, USA and Brisbane, Australia as well as support teams across the globe.
Statseeker has virtualized nearly all of their business-critical data and applications on VMware vSphere. Thus, multiple VMware VMs run a combination of internal applications, Statseeker’s own product, several databases, web servers, and standard office automation software. Protecting Statseeker’s IT infrastructure is crucial for the company’s day-to-day operations and software development. Any failures or outages could severely impact Statseeker’s business, as certain hosted servers and applications must be available 24/7 for their customer base. As a result, Statseeker’s IT team must be able to back up and recover VMware VMs quickly, with a high level of reliability.
Statseeker was using a different VM backup solution for approximately two years. “That VM backup product was light-weight, low-cost software that backed up our virtual servers. However, the software lacked the style of a classical backup tool, as there was no graphical user interface. Expanding storage space was also slowly becoming a challenge for us. We moved away from that product because we wanted an enterprise type solution that could provide us with a proper user interface, as well as the ability to save storage space with deduplication and compression. We needed a reliable VM backup solution with a proven track record,” says Mehran Fakhredin, Network Infrastructure Engineer at Statseeker.
Solution
Statseeker evaluated several products at the same time. NAKIVO Backup & Replication met all the requirements for the company, while also offering competitive pricing. Presently, NAKIVO Backup & Replication protects the VMware VMs at Statseeker. NAKIVO Backup & Replication provides fast VM backup, global data deduplication, and compression for Statseeker. As of now, NAKIVO Backup & Replication is installed on a standalone backup server. “We did not struggle at all with the setup and configuration of NAKIVO Backup & Replication. Everything was simple to understand from the navigation perspective. NAKIVO Backup & Replication is easy to implement and test,” says Mehran.
NAKIVO Backup & Replication provides Statseeker with faster VM backup in comparison with their previous backup tool. With forever-incremental backup, all subsequent jobs after the initial full backup send only changed data to the backup repository. This approach reduces backup time and network load. “We have two separate backup schedules, where backup jobs start at different times. We start with the initial full backup and then use forever-incremental backup. We always try to keep at least 10 recovery points. The forever-incremental backup system is incredibly fast and saves us time, as some jobs can literally finish in minutes,” says Mehran.
Statseeker improved VM backup speed not only because of forever-incremental backup, but also due to the software’s built-in global deduplication and compression functionalities. “Our previous backup tool required a separate device for deduplication; we like the fact that deduplication is already built into NAKIVO’s software. We were experiencing significant challenges with the old backup tool, as the product was consuming plenty of space and restricting our backup schedules. NAKIVO Backup & Replication eliminated all those issues; we can now make more VM backups and store more in the backup repository. We reduced storage space consumption by 2.5X for sure, as before, we could only store backups for 4 days, and now, we can store them for more than 10,” says Mehran.
NAKIVO Backup & Replication sends notifications and automatic reports over email, giving Statseeker speedy alerts in case anything abnormal occurs in the course of the product’s backup job execution. “We enjoy receiving the notifications that our backup jobs have completed quickly and successfully. As a result of such reporting, we save a little bit of time every day – approximately half an hour. Nonetheless, we still check and verify VM backups ourselves according to our normal routine,” says Mehran.
Results
NAKIVO Backup & Replication provides Statseeker with a much-needed user-friendly web interface, fast VM backup, and storage space savings with global data deduplication. With the product’s forever-incremental backup, Statseeker can complete backup jobs much faster than with their previous backup tool. Thanks to the built-in global deduplication, the company can store more VM backups in their backup repository without additional investments in hardware. “We enjoy the simplicity of NAKIVO Backup & Replication, as the software is easy to use and understand. We are also not spending thousands of dollars from our budget, and that is a huge plus. In addition, NAKIVO Backup & Replication saved us a ton of storage space and removed the need to invest in additional disk storage for our backups. Basically, NAKIVO Backup & Replication saves both time and money for Statseeker,” says Mehran.
About Statseeker
Statseeker provides innovative network monitoring solutions for the IT enterprise and OT industrial market space. With active deployments in over 22 countries, including many Fortune 100 firms, Statseeker monitors millions of interfaces in real-time. These companies trust Statseeker to deliver big data, make decisions, and take action. Statseeker allows them to identify critical issues, isolate what needs work with confidence, and fix problems instantly. For more information, please visit www.statseeker.com.