Research Center Saves Thousands of Dollars in Backup Costs with NAKIVO
Business Challenge
The Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center (CSCC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill coordinates activities for large clinical trials and epidemiology studies. More than 100 students and staff are involved in CSCC’s work. The center’s studies involve hundreds of clinical centers and hundreds of thousands of research subjects. So far, the CSCC has produced over 2,000 research publications. One long-term CSCC study investigates the causes of atherosclerosis and its clinical outcomes.
CSCC operates out of 1 physical site with 20 physical servers and 70 virtual machines. Virtual machines run web hosting services and various statistical analysis applications. Backups are critical for the research center, as the environment needs to be quickly recovered to achieve minimal disruption to staff and students. Any downtime would be detrimental and could impact not only the quality of the research but also the hours spent on that research.
CSCC relies on one provider for NAS and tape backup since historical data up to 5 years old should be recoverable at all times. However, for virtual and physical backup, CSCC used another VM backup solution for data protection. CSCC had to switch from the previous backup solution because the cost structure that the vendor provided was completely unacceptable. By continuing to use the previous VM backup solution, CSCC could have spent 50% more on the backup infrastructure, thus a switch to another vendor was necessary.
Solution
NAKIVO Backup & Replication is much easier to use and requires less administrative effort compared to the CSCC’s previous backup solution. With the previous product, deploying it to another server, in case the original server went down, proved to be a challenge. While with NAKIVO Backup & Replication, there are more choices when it comes to deployment on different platforms. “The installation of NAKIVO Backup & Replication was extremely easy. The web interface is super user-friendly, and I do not have to perform various extra steps in order to get to the features that I need,” says Bill McGee Network Administrator at the Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
NAKIVO Backup & Replication can be installed on Synology NAS hardware to create a multifunctional backup appliance to back up virtual, physical, and SaaS data. “Since the Synology NAS ensures high availability for the data stored on the device, I know that NAKIVO Backup & Replication installed on Synology will always back up our critical data,” says Bill.
NAKIVO Backup & Replication offers a wide variety of functionalities, including VM replication and instant granular recovery. VM replication ensures high availability during disruptions, increases IT infrastructure resilience, and maintains business continuity. NAKIVO Backup & Replication also allows CSCC to recover files and application objects without recovering the full VM first.
“Replicating critical VMs is extremely vital for us, and the ability to bring the replica back on has worked wonders for us. The ability to drill down and pull a file from a VM backup has helped us when only one or a couple of files need to be recovered,” says Bill.
“NAKIVO Backup & Replication has helped me realize exactly what I needed to change within our backup architecture. Previously, our backup architecture was less structured. NAKIVO Backup & Replication made me think that I need to use all of the abilities of the software to flesh out what needs to be backed up,” says Bill.
Results
Unlike the previous solution, NAKIVO Backup & Replication can be installed on a variety of systems, delivers ease of use and helps save time on backup administration. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, CSCC saved thousands of dollars in backup costs after switching from a different solution. NAKIVO Backup & Replication also proved to offer easier integration with Linux VMs and easier management of servers. “NAKIVO Backup & Replication has better integration with my Linux VMs in comparison to the previous product. Moreover, I really appreciate the ease of use that the solution offers. Previously, I was not able to easily move from server to server, if needed, while with NAKIVO Backup & Replication all administrative things are just way less complicated,” says Bill.
About the Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center
The Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center (CSCC) is a center under the Department of Biostatistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It serves as a coordinating center for multi-site public health and medical studies, providing statistical analysis, data management, study management, and quality assurance. The CSCC’s mission is to improve public health by coordinating important health research, developing innovative research methodology, and providing practical training in the application of research methods. For more information, visit https://sites.cscc.unc.edu/cscc/.