NAKIVO VM Backup Appliance Based on Synology NAS Saves VM Backup Budget by 75% for a Software Provider

Business Challenge

Established in 2008, JSC Insoft develops business applications, portals, and IT solutions for government organizations in Lithuania, such as the Police department, Tax Inspectorate, Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Internal Affairs and many others. The company offers a range of services in regards to custom software creation, including development, testing, design, implementation, and support.

While JSC Insoft has developed many sophisticated IT systems and portals for government organizations and enterprises, those systems have warranty and post-warranty support agreements, which bring the need to have many development and testing environments, which are organized as VM groups, hosted in-house. Such support agreements often mandate strict requirements regarding backup and recovery.

“We were searching for a VM backup solution, which would offer the possibility to have shorter backup windows, as well as longer backup retention periods while using less backup space. One of the obvious solutions would be a deduplication appliance, but with our VMware VMs exceeding tens of TBs, this would involve additional investment into backup hardware. Our goal was to find a reliable VM backup solution that would provide availability of data and applications 24/7,” says Pavel Paidem, IT Solutions Manager at JSC Insoft.

Solution

Bakotech, a value-added distributor, recommended NAKIVO Backup & Replication as a possible VM backup solution for Insoft, because of the product’s integration with Synology NAS, as well as its global data deduplication feature. “Alternative VM backup solutions that we have evaluated, relied either on external deduplication or on a “per job” deduplication for saving VM storage space. The problem with increasing VM storage space was rather pressing that is why we were pleasantly surprised how quickly NAKIVO Backup & Replication reduced our VM storage space and removed duplicate copies of data,” says Pavel. The global data deduplication feature provides considerable reduction in storage space capacity, while also allows for a more efficient disk space utilization and lower direct storage costs.

Instead of investing in a deduplication appliance, Insoft decided to take advantage of NAKIVO Backup & Replication integration with Synology NAS. By installing NAKIVO Backup & Replication on Synology NAS, Insoft improved VM backup performance, saved storage space and budget. “Basically, we have created our own VM backup appliance by installing the product on a Synology NAS. This integration not only reduced costs, but also provided a faster and more flexible way to deploy and manage the product. NAKIVO Backup & Replication uses all the available space on the Synology NAS to store VM backups and deduplicates the backed-up data across the entire storage, to save even more space. Not only were we able to significantly decrease our VM backup budget, but also, we saved money on hardware and other infrastructure resources,” says Pavel.

“In terms of VM backup, forever incremental backup without the need for periodic full or synthetic full backup, made our backup windows short and consistent. Such performance eventually led to our development and testing infrastructure to function 24/7,” says Pavel. In addition, Insoft enjoys the ease of use and clarity of scheduling VM backup and backup copy jobs. “The overview of the existing backup retention policy is easily understandable, allowing us to rotate recovery points on a per-needed basis. While backup copy provides the simple and powerful way to create and maintain copies of backups in different locations,” says Pavel.

Results

NAKIVO Backup & Replication, installed on Synology NAS, provides JSC Insoft with an excellent VM backup performance and a reduced VM backup budget of 75%. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, the company has reduced VM backup storage space with global data deduplication, and now can schedule and maintain backup copies in different locations. “Instead of going with traditional backup vendors or investing in a deduplication appliance, we are happy that we found NAKIVO Backup & Replication. The accumulated savings come from the price of software itself, storage hardware price, and the absence of the need to purchase a backup server,” says Pavel.

Company Profile

Established in 2008, Insoft is an advanced, dynamic, and devoted IT solution provider in Baltics and the United Kingdom. Right from the beginning, Insoft has been developing and continuously improving its products and services thanks to the creative and professional people who are devoted to delivering the highest quality. Insoft solutions are widely used in E-Government Services, Police and Security Services, Border Control, and Criminal Justice Agencies. Insoft has successfully deployed E-Government software and services to the Local and Central Government. The company uses robust technology to create tailored tools for business process and information management and its IT professionals are always client-focused and analyze business requirements thoroughly to deliver top solutions. For more information, please visit www.insoft.lt.