NAKIVO and QNAP Save Time, Money, and Storage Space for OPO Oeschger

OPO Oeschger AG, a Swiss company selling tools and fittings, increases VM backup performance, saves storage space, and saves costs on VM backup with NAKIVO Backup & Replication installed on a QNAP NAS.

www.opo.ch

Business Challenge

OPO Oeschger AG is a leading supplier of tools and fittings headquartered in Kloten, Switzerland. With over 200 members of staff and over 10,000 active customers, OPO Oeschger offers a comprehensive range of products comprising more than 60,000 articles. The company operates via an internet store, where products can be found and ordered online, as well as via 700 suppliers worldwide.

OPO Oeschger’s IT infrastructure consists of eight sites: six branches in Switzerland and two locations in Germany. The company’s multiple VMware VMs run file servers, Linux web servers, Windows servers, Microsoft Exchange, and an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) based on SAP HANA. A VM backup solution is an important part of OPO Oeschger’s IT strategy, as all the data stored in their VMs is integral to the company’s successful daily operations, and thus must be protected in the most reliable way.

“We had been using another VM backup solution for quite some time. That solution was truly convoluted software that required specific technical background and training in order to operate that software successfully. It would take us hours just to comprehend the product’s basic functionality, and days to understand the entire VM backup process configuration, data transfer, and reports. In addition, the retention scheme allowed us to keep only a limited number of recovery points, and that was not enough for us. Basically, as the pricing model for the licensing and subscription became too expensive for us, we decided to switch to another product. We were looking for a VM backup solution that could be deployed on QNAP NAS. The solution had to offer forever-incremental VM backup and VM recovery. Most importantly, the solution had to be easy to use,” says Raoul Lema, IT Manager at OPO Oeschger.

Solution

While other VM backup solutions only offered a Windows installation option, NAKIVO Backup & Replication was selected to protect the virtual environment of OPO Oeschger due to the product’s range of deployment options. Not only can NAKIVO Backup & Replication be installed on Windows, but the product can also be deployed as a VMware virtual appliance and installed on a NAS, among other possibilities. OPO Oeschger installed NAKIVO Backup & Replication directly on their QNAP NAS to create a high-performance VM backup appliance. In contrast to the company’s previous VM backup solution, which required hours of familiarization and significant technical training, NAKIVO Backup & Replication’s implementation process was a breeze. Within 10 minutes, the software was installed, and in under an hour, the IT team had gotten to the root of the product’s functionality.

With their VM backup appliance built by installing NAKIVO Backup & Replication on a QNAP NAS, OPO Oeschger separates VM backups from the rest of their infrastructure, thus offloading infrastructure resources. “We installed NAKIVO Backup & Replication on QNAP NAS in order to separate our VM backups completely, so that if we are hit by a disaster or a virus, our VM backups will remain unaffected and available for recovery. With the QNAP NAS, our data is secure, while with a Windows installation, our data could be more prone to hacker attacks,” says Raoul.

In addition, with this strategy, OPO Oeschger has been able to improve VM backup performance, save VM storage space, and decrease costs as well. “With QNAP NAS installation, forever-incremental backup with changed block tracking (CBT), global data deduplication, and compression functionality, we have great VM backup performance and a ton of extra storage space for VM backups. With its affordable pricing and great functionality, NAKIVO Backup & Replication offers the best price/performance ratio,” says Raoul.

With VMware’s CBT technology, OPO Oeschger can now back up VMware VMs within 5 minutes, as only those data blocks that were changed since the previous backup get transferred to the backup repository. “During the day, we run VM backup jobs for our two most critical servers – a SAP ERP server and our stock server. We can run a large number of backup jobs due to NAKIVO Backup & Replication’s awesome global data deduplication and compression functionality. Because the size of VM backups is so small with CBT, we have been able to tremendously reduce the VM storage space they take up, and we can now create and keep many more VM backups,” says Raoul.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication also provides OPO Oeschger with a retention scheme that allows them to create up to 1,000 recovery points. “With the previous VM backup solution, we wanted to keep 100 recovery points, and it was not possible to create so many. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, we no longer have such restrictions and can create up to 1,000 recovery points,” says Raoul.

Results

NAKIVO Backup & Replication installed on QNAP NAS provides OPO Oeschger with improved VM backup performance, storage space savings, and cost savings on VM backup. OPO Oeschger can back up their VMware VMs within 5 minutes and can run multiple VM backup jobs per day. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication’s retention scheme, OPO Oeschger also can maintain up to 1,000 recovery points. “NAKIVO Backup & Replication is the easiest software in terms of installation and configuration – I believe even my seven-year-old son could install this software without a problem. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, we save time on backup administration; its installation directly on the QNAP NAS means we no longer need to perform constant patching, as we did before with our Windows installation. With the help of space-saving features, of the backups take up much less storage space, leaving us able to hold many more VM backups in our repository. NAKIVO Backup & Replication has saved us approximately 200,000 CHF,” says Raoul.

About OPO Oeschger AG

OPO Oeschger AG was founded in 1926 by Paul Oeschger in Oerlikon, north of Zurich in Switzerland. OPO Oeschger AG has six sites spread across all of Switzerland’s linguistic regions and an additional two sites in Germany. The company sells fittings for kitchens, furniture, doors, buildings, glass and metal construction, as well as machinery, tools, and fastening and fixing systems. OPO Oeschger’s customers come from various industries, including interior design, kitchen and home furnishing, glass and metal manufacturers, schools and public institutions, and other special retailers. Overall, the company employs more than 200 members of staff and serves over 10,000 active customers. For more information, please visit www.opo.ch.