Page 1
Case Study
Eurobank Serbia
streamlines data backup
Objective
Implement a more reliable, eicient and
faster backup infrastructure, capable of
multi-site replication
Approach
Issued an RFP, saw demonstrations
and took part in reference visits
IT Matters
• Increases backup speeds by four times
• Delivers restore rates that are twice
as quick as before
• Writes just one twelfth of the
total data to disk thanks to
deduplication technology
Business Matters
• Enables daily backups to ensure high
availability and security of critical
business and client data
• Save money by reducing the number
of storage disks required
• Provides a state-of-the art, localised
service with one single point of contact
and archiving
HPE StoreOnce and HPE Data Protector increase
backup speeds and reduce restore times
Eurobank Serbia needed a
more reliable, eicient and
faster backup and archiving
infrastructure to ensure the
safety of critical business
information and data on its
900,000 clients. Multi-site
replication was a major
requirement and the answer
was provided by HPE
StoreOnce Backup systems
with HPE Data Protector 8.1
backup software.
Challenge
Need for better storage performance
The ability to safely store, backup and
retrieve data is vital for all businesses but is
particularly critical in the financial services
sector where the protection of sensitive
customer information, security and legal
compliance are serious issues. Recognising
this, Eurobank Serbia reviewed its storage
infrastructure and realised that it needed a
more reliable, faster and eicient solution.
With total assets of €75.5 billion, 17,400
employees and a retail network of more than
1,000 branches in many countries, Eurobank
Group entered the Serbian market in 2003.
After successfully acquiring Postbank &
National Savings Bank, Eurobank now holds
a leading position in Serbia where it has
1,500 employees who meet the needs of
over 500,000 clients through a network of
85 branches and business centres.
Page 2
Case study
Eurobank Serbia
“Backing up our 3.5TB Oracle database used to take between nine
and 12 hours. Now it takes three hours. Restore rates are also twice
as fast as they were before.”
— Branko Nikolic, system engineer, Eurobank Serbia
Industry
Financial services/
banking
Page 2
Eurobank Serbia’s headquarters is in
Belgrade where all data is centrally stored at
its main data centre and disaster recovery
(DR) sites, serving a widely distributed
environment of some 100 locations. These
include three main back oices in Belgrade,
each with between 100 and 300 employees
and many branches throughout the country.
Locations are connected by links which vary
from 10MB to 40MB.
The bank runs approximately 200 physical
and virtual servers using Microsoft®
Hyper-V and VMware hypervisors. It has
five HPE BladeSystem c7000 enclosures at
its primary site and two at its DR site, with
FlexFabric interconnections and its server
farm includes HPE rack servers.
“We have to store about 20TB of data
and a primary challenge was that we
wanted the ability to create a second
copy of data from the back oices, which
we were unable to do with our previous
solution,” says Branko Nikolic, system
engineer with Eurobank Serbia. “Backup
was not really reliable because we were
using only tape libraries. We had HPE Data
Protector software but we did not have
disk-to-disk storage devices. Also we didn’t
have deduplication technology. Because
we were only using tape for backup, if, for
example, we had to back up a 3TB Oracle
database we were unable to simultaneously
perform regular restores to test the backups
we had created. We wanted to achieve
better reliability, improved performance
and better data security.”
Eurobank Serbia issued a Request for
Proposal (RFP) for a backup solution
to cover data from Oracle and MS SQL
Server databases, MS Exchange 2003,
MS SharePoint 2010, Windows® operating
systems and physical/virtual servers.
It considered submissions from HPE, IBM,
EMC and Siemens/TechTastic. Its sta had
previously seen demonstrations of HPE
Data Protector at HPE Discover events
and also took part in reference visits and
consultations. After listening to various
recommendations they decided that the
HPE equipment was the best fit for business
needs. Another deciding factor was the
HPE ability to provide a total solution with
local support. With only a small IT team, the
bank did not want to manage many dierent
types of hardware and train sta in the
technologies of dierent vendors.
Solution
Multi-site support
Eurobank Serbia has installed an enterprise
backup and archiving solution designed
to meet its current business and technical
requirements and scalable enough for future
growth. It’s based on four HPE StoreOnce
disk backup systems and HPE Data
Protector 8.1 backup software.
The infrastructure includes an HPE
EVA P6550 Storage Array at the bank’s
production site and an HPE EVA P6500 at
its disaster recovery site. It also features two
HPE MSL4048 Tape Libraries which are
used for long-term data archiving.
Page 3
Case study
Eurobank Serbia
Industry
Financial services/
banking
Page 3
Two 10GB HPE 5920 Switch Series have
been purchased and will be commissioned
when the bank completes an eagerly
anticipated conversion from 1GB to 10GB
network connectivity between its c7000
chassis and StoreOnce devices.
One HPE StoreOnce 4700 system with 20TB
of usable space (after RAID) backs up data
to disk at the primary data centre and a
similar 40TB system is used at the DR site.
The two other StoreOnce devices support
backups from three main remote locations.
Tape libraries are situated at the primary
and DR locations. One HPE ProLiant
DL380 backup server is used at the
production site and a second is located
at the DR site. Backup is optimised with
HPE Data Protector automated backup
and recovery software.
When the bank’s 10GB links are operational,
Catalyst interfaces will be used for
backups and data replication. They will
oer significant technical advantages over
legacy VTL and NAS interfaces including
source-side deduplication and fine-grained
replication control. Backup data flow will go
directly from server hosts to 10GB interfaces
on the backup to disk devices without going
through the backup server.
HPE Data Protector cell manager is installed
on a backup server in the primary site and
all backups with a retention requirement
of more than one month are o loaded to
tapes. All hardware is covered by a threeyear warranty that includes 24x7 support
with six hour call to repair services.
Benefit
Quicker backup and restore
“We are now able to perform daily backups.
Some databases like our Oracle and
Microsoft SQL have full backup every
day and for others, it’s a mix of full and
incremental backups. It depends on the
criticality of data. The data is backed up to
the StoreOnce devices in our back oices
and then it’s replicated through links onto
the primary site,” says Nikolic. “We try to
back up the data after working hours, from
5pm until 8am the next day, and the plan is
to replicate the backups from the primary
site to the disaster recovery site as soon as
we implement the 10GB links.”
Since implementing the HPE solution,
Eurobank Serbia’s IT team have seen a
dramatic improvement in backup speeds.
“A good comparison is the backup of our
main Oracle database which is around
3.5TB,” adds Nikolic. “Before, it was backed
up only on tape which took between nine
and 12 hours. Now it takes about three hours
– four times better. We are also able to do
restores whenever we are requested and
they are twice as quick. Previously, we had
four drives in the tape library which were
always busy with backups and we had to
cancel some of those backups in order to
perform a restore. Now we don’t have to
do that so backups and restores can run
at the same time. We no longer have
limitations because daily backups are
performed on StoreOnce devices and
tapes are only used for archiving.”
Page 4
Case study
Eurobank Serbia
Industry
Financial services/
banking
Customer at a glance
Hardware
• HPE StoreOnce 4700 Backup
• HPE StoreOnce 4220 Backup
• HPE StoreOnce 2700 Backup
• HPE MSL 4048 Tape Libraries
• HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen8 severs
• HPE BladeSystem c7000 enclosures
• HPE FlexFabric
• HPE EVA P6550 Storage Array
• HPE EVA P6500 Storage Array
• HPE 5920 Switch Series
“We have seen great benefits from the HPE deduplication
technology. The total data written to our device is nearly
200TB but the actual disk space consumed is just 16.5TB.”
— Branko Nikolic, system engineer, Eurobank Serbia
Software
• HPE Data Protector 8.1
HPE services
• 24x7 support with six hour call to repair
“Before the HPE solution we had backups
of our biggest databases that lasted for
12 hours during which time we could not
do restores. Now we are able to perform
restores for 12 hours and that is really
acceptable for our business. It’s a really
big benefit.”
The bank has also seen great advantages
from the HPE deduplication technology.
Deduplication identifies and eliminates
redundancy by writing only unique data
to storage. When duplicate files, blocks,
or byte sequences are detected, only a
pointer linked to the unique piece of data is
stored. This pointer consumes significantly
less capacity than storing the whole item
multiple times, saving cost by reducing the
number of disks needed and optimising
network bandwidth to enable replication
with lower bandwidth requirements.
“With deduplication, we are achieving ratios
that range from 3.8:1 up to 13.1:1 depending
on the type of data that is being backed up.
The space saving on disks is quite large and
although we do not have actual figures, I am
sure it saves us a lot of money.”
“The data written on our device is nearly
200TB but the total capacity of the device
is 40 TB. The real actual space that is
consumed on the device is 16.5TB so with
deduplication, 12 times less data is actually
written on the device. The best part is that
the deduplication works on all types of data
whether its file system types, the content of
virtual machines or databases.
“The security of data is also important. All
data is automatically encrypted so I don’t
have to worry about it. No-one can steal my
device and perform restore from it. Other
benefits are multi-user support and ease of
management. The systems are very reliable
and it’s important to our business to have a
fully integrated solution form a single vendor
like HPE,” says Nikolic.
IT infrastructure manager at Eurobank,
Nenad Manasijevic concludes: “By
implementing the HPE backup and archiving
solution we have created a converged IT
infrastructure model that is capable of
meeting the demands of the business for
the next five years.”
Learn more at
hpe.com/storage
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© Copyright 2015 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. The information contained herein is subject to change without
notice. The only warranties for HPE products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such
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technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
Microsoft and Windows are a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft group of companies.
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its ailiates.
4AA5-7759EEW, November 2015, Rev. 1
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