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Technology Industry

Startup outsources backups: rapid growth sparks IT interest in limiting tasks

Communications News, August, 2003 by Andrew Anderson

When the information technology (IT) department at software startup Incentive Systems, Bedford, Mass., evaluated steps to keep from being blown away by the company's rapid growth, Glenn Timmons, IT director, looked for a way to build an infrastructure that would accommodate growth without saddling his small department with a multitude of unnecessary tasks.

At its outset, Incentive Systems had 50 employees and three Windows NT servers: one at the corporate office and one each at its two sales and services offices in Burlingame, Calif., and Chicago. Within a year of startup, the company--whose software enables organizations to create sales and bonus compensation plans--had 160 employees and partnerships with Nortel and KPMG Consulting.

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The company also had 13 Windows NT servers--11 in its corporate office and one in each of its remote offices. Servers in the remote offices connected to the corporate LAN via a 384-K frame relay wide link. A mix of Dell PowerEdge 6300s and PowerEdge 6400s provided a total storage capacity of about one-half terabyte.

Building the IT infrastructure initially called for breaking up the three servers by application and putting specific applications on dedicated servers. The IT department continued this procedure as new servers came online. For example, one server handles Lotus Notes used for e-mail server, while several other servers store the product's source code. Others function as file servers for Microsoft Office applications, as well as database servers.

SHIFTING SERVER TASKS

Next, Timmons examined routine storage management tasks that could sensibly and safely be put into the hands of a third party. While a consistent backup schedule is critical for any type of data protection, he says that as the company added servers, the IT department would have to devote more hours to this exacting, and sometimes unpredictable task.

Backing up servers would mean assigning an IT staff member to take responsibility for the tasks. Individuals would need to be trained in the remote offices, where there were no IT professionals, to handle the backup tasks. This meant buying backup devices, backup software and media, and storing large volumes of media off site.

Also, the IT team would have to restore any files requested by employees by looking through backup logs to locate the appropriate tape, loading the tape in the DLT device, finding and finally restoring the file. "We didn't want any IT staff members devoting time to the backup and restore tasks," Timmons says.

Convincing the vice president of engineering to use a storage service provider specializing in server-to-server backup and restore was not

difficult, according to Timmons. "amerivault saved the IT department from buying unnecessary backup devices, media and software; and from making sure tapes got sent off site consistently.

"Most of all, the service freed the IT staff to work on other pressing assignments. Since amerivault stores our data live on disks, we had the added advantage of restoring files, even directories, with only a few mouse clicks. Without this service provider," claims Timmons, "we would have to spend at least four hours a day backing up all of the servers."

Unlike tape, which copies the entire file during each backup, the Waltham, Mass.-based company's delta technology shrinks the backup window and transparently takes only the changes since the last backup for that server. As the IT department installed each server, amerivault did a full backup of the server's files.

SYSTEM STORES CHANGES ONLY

From this initial backup, a mapping strategy was created in an index file. Each time a backup occurs, the system looks for files that have block changes, locates those changed blocks, compresses, encrypts and then sends them over the wire. Various options can provide for backing up certain directories, or file types, such as Word documents only. Just the changes, again encrypted, travel over the wide area networks frame relay lines.

To use the service, the IT department loaded the proprietary backup and restore agent software on each server--including remotely loading the servers in the field, as well as on workstations at the corporate site. After each backup, the IT department receives an e-mail message verifying whether or not the backup ran successfully. A successful notification message tells how long the backup lasted, when it occurred and how much was backed up. Looking for these e-mail messages, jokes Timmons, is the only task the IT group has to do now.

The service also enables the IT department to restore files on each server with a minimum of human intervention. "We just have to select the files, directories or entire drives we are being asked to restore from, and then we answer a couple of questions about where to place the data," Timmons says, "Finally, our server then connects and forwards the files to the designated location, even to the remote servers."

Technology Industry

Startup outsources backups: rapid growth sparks IT interest in limiting tasks

Communications News, August, 2003 by Andrew Anderson

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