NAKIVO on ASUSTOR NAS Saves Storage Space by 60% for a Cloud Software Provider

Business Challenge

Founded in 2011, Onit is a cloud software provider that creates solutions to transform best practices into smarter workflows, better processes, and operational efficiencies. Onit deploys Onit Apps to simplify business process automation and improve business productivity across all industries, primarily working with legal, compliance, sales, IT, HR, and finance departments. Onit specializes in enterprise legal management, matter management, spend management, contract management, and legal holds.

Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Onit now has several sites across the United States, Europe, and Asia, and their IT infrastructure consists of 12 physical servers running approximately 300 VMware VMs. The virtual environment is almost entirely based on Linux servers that run a combination of databases, web applications, and search, job automation, and utility servers. With a global customer base and employees located across several different time zones, Onit cannot afford any downtime or data loss. Their employees need to communicate with customers on a daily basis, so losing even one business day would be costly and troublesome for them. That’s why it was imperative that they find a robust VM backup solution for data protection.

“Formerly, our internal network servers were protected by rsync at the file level. Restoring from rsync was a laborious and time-consuming process. The program also lacked the ability to restore entire virtual machines. For an environment with a large number of VMs, we really needed software that was specifically created to protect virtual environments. As we do not have the resources to babysit every single process, reliability and ease of use were extremely important for us. In the end, that’s why we chose NAKIVO Backup & Replication – because of the software’s functionality and pricing structure, which kills the competition,” said Steven Brown, IT and Compliance Manager at Onit.

Solution

Steven was already acquainted with NAKIVO Backup & Replication; from using it in the past, he knew that the software was easy to set up, manage, and maintain. Initially, Steven discovered NAKIVO Backup & Replication as one of the few VM backup solutions that could run natively on many different NAS hardware devices. Onit purchased NAKIVO Backup & Replication to protect servers that provided controlled production access, data sanitization, QA, and development environments. They installed the software on an ASUSTOR AS6208T NAS in order to create a reliable and energy-efficient VM backup appliance for their virtual environment. Such a VM backup appliance combines software, hardware, and storage in a single device. The major advantages are that there is no need to purchase a separate server to run VM backups, and that hypervisor resources are not consumed.

With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, Onit can now take advantage of several features, including VM backup, VM replication, and backup copy. Testing and implementing these features was as easy as any IT manager could hope. With VM backup, Onit can increase VM backup speed with VMware Changed Block Tracking (CBT) and save storage space with data deduplication. “NAKIVO Backup & Replication allows us to back up approximately 10TB of data, and we generally keep recovery points on a daily and weekly basis. Cumulatively, the whole backup process takes a couple hours every night, while separate backups on the weekends take approximately six to eight hours. With data deduplication and compression, we also managed to decrease the storage space consumed by 60%, so we can back up VMs more often while retaining information for longer periods of time,” says Steven.

With VM replication, Onit creates and maintains identical copies of source VMs on target ESXi hosts. In case of a disaster, VM replicas can be powered on and then powered off once the virtual infrastructure is restored. The risks of data loss and downtime are minimized with VM replication. In addition, Onit maintains backup copies offsite, as an extra layer of security to allow them to fulfill business recovery objectives.

Results

NAKIVO Backup & Replication installed on ASUSTOR NAS provides Onit with an ability to back up and replicate VMs and keep backup copies offsite. With global data deduplication and compression, Onit saved 60% of its VM storage space. The ASUSTOR NAS installation option eliminated the need to purchase separate servers to run VM backups. “NAKIVO Backup & Replication is one of the most intuitive and easy-to-use VM backup solutions that I have encountered. Although we had rsync in place to protect our critical data, the whole process was labor-intensive and chaotic. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, I now sleep better knowing that any sort of disaster will be mitigated, especially with VM replication and backup copy functionality. The biggest advantage for us is that with the storage savings, we can back up 60% more data, while completing the entire process in about a third of the time it previously took,” says Steven.

About Onit

Onit is the leading provider of Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) solutions for the 21st century. Brought to you by the same team that created Spend Management a generation ago, Onit is transforming the way legal departments drive operational and process improvements. By focusing on process, Onit’s solutions help customers drive tremendous gains in efficiency, accelerate transaction velocity, and reduce costs. For more information, visit www.onit.com.