Objective
Streamline storage to shorten
backup windows
Approach
Researched storage solutions
from four vendors
Case Study
99X delivers more for
less with new storage
and backup solutions
HPE RMC forges secure link between
HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE StoreOnce
IT Matters
• Reduces backup times for a single
virtual machine by a factor of 20
• Enables up to 50 simultaneous
backups to be run
• Uses snapshots to speed up data
restore times
Business Matters
• Cuts storage and backup overheads
• Increases competitive advantage by
supporting attractive service levels
and pricing
• Supports continued business growth
Challenge
Need to reduce backup windows
One of the most essential assets for IT
service providers is the assurance that client
data is safe and 99X, one of Norway’s largest
service providers, is no exception. Managing
primary storage for production workloads
and secondary storage for data protection
from its headquarter in Oslo and branch
oice in Sri Lanka, it supports 10000
users in 550 locations, dealing with over
200 applications and many thousands
of virtual machines.
With 105 employees, 99X derives its name
from the core of what it delivers – the 99
representing availability and the X, flexibility.
At any one time it can be running up to
50 simultaneous backups and its guarantee
to customers is that they can rapidly and
cost-eectively access their data, anytime
from anywhere.
Small and medium sized businesses are the
core market for 99X so while its environment
is highly virtualised with VMware vSphere®,
it’s also very segmented, making data
backup complex, time consuming and
potentially insecure.
“We have a lot of network segments and
a lot of firewalls and routers to traverse
which makes backups painful,” says 99X
chief operating oicer, Njål Wogn-Henriksen.
“It also threatens the reliability of data
protection because the data has to land
in a lot of places before it gets to where it
should be. We do backups nearly every
way there is including agent-based backups
using hypervisor APIs but even so, in the
past, data still had to traverse a lot of points
and all those network segments, firewalls,
links and routers had to be sized according
to the data that is passing through them.
That is why moving data with fewer hops
was key to our strategy.”
Case study
99X
“With these Hewlett Packard Enterprise solutions, we are able to back up
and a higher quality service.”
– Njal Wogn-Henriksen, chief operating oicer, 99X
Industry
IT Services
large amounts of data in a lot shorter time; we have not had any errors and
recovery speeds are more than suicient. We can now direct our focus on
protecting data that really matters and can go to market with a lower price
Page 2
20X
reduction in
backup times
99X runs backups almost 24x7, moving
on average 2GB every second of every
hour of every day, making data protection
vulnerable to errors. Small changes in
Domain Name System (DNS) or the
service state could aect the processes.
With such a complex environment,
troubleshooting even minute changes
could be very time-consuming, requiring
more involvement from management sta
and this made it diicult for 99X to maintain
a flat overhead and hit client service levels.
99X found that the speed and flexibility
of its legacy storage and backup systems
could not deliver the levels of eiciency
it required. It needed a new solution that
would lower Total Cost of Ownership,
simplify management, improve application
performance and enhance data protection.
Solution
3PAR StoreServ All-flash integrated
data protection
In 2015, 99X recognised the simplicity
and performance benefits of All-flash
storage and took the decision to move
to Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
storage solutions. It has replaced its
previous systems with HPE 3PAR StoreServ
20850 Storage enterprise All-flash arrays.
The new 99X environment also includes
HPE StoreOnce 6500 System. Designed
to take the pain out of enterprise backup
and disaster recovery, this solution
reduces management overheads, cuts
storage costs and matches data growth
by providing eicient disk based backup
with data deduplication.
Finally, to reduce complexity and improve
security, 99X has also deployed HPE
Recovery Manager Central. This software
integrates the performance of HPE 3PAR
StoreServ primary storage snapshots with
the protection of HPE StoreOnce systems
to provide fast, eicient, reliable and simple
protection for business-critical applications.
HPE RMC copies snapshot data from
HPE 3PAR StoreServ directly to HPE
StoreOnce, eliminating the need for a
backup application for data movement.
Bringing primary and secondary storage
together in this way provides a faster, less
complex and lower cost alternative to
traditional backup processes, delivering
application-consistent, non-disruptive
protection for business-critical applications.
Case study
99X
Industry
IT Services
Customer at a glance
Hardware
• HPE 3PAR StoreServ 20850 Storage
• HPE StoreOnce 6500
• HPE Recovery Manager Central
HPE services
• HPE Foundation Care
These solutions were implemented by
HPE which is also providing five-year,
24x7 Foundation Care storage support.
HPE StoreOnce and HPE 3PAR StoreServ
were installed by local HPE technicians
but the comparatively new technology
of HPE RMC was a co-operation between
the HPE RMC/StoreOnce lab in Bristol
and local HPE sta. As an early adopter
of this technology, 99X welcomed this
‘cross border’ arrangement.
Benefit
More for less
As well as simplifying the process of moving
data, 99X has now reduced backup times for
a single vSphere Virtual Machine (VM) by
a factor of twenty. It is currently running
40 to 50 backups simultaneously and on
average they are taking between 25 and
30 minutes to complete. With HPE RMC,
a single LUN containing some 50 VMs is
taking 30 seconds per VM.
“HPE RMC has provided a new technology
angle from which we get fast backups and
we’re very excited about the integration
between HPE 3PAR StoreServ and HPE
StoreOnce,” says Wogn-Henriksen. “More
for less is our challenge and being able to
deliver more high quality services is a very
vital asset. With the new solutions from
HPE, we are able to back up servers without
traversing the network as much as we
used to do and we are also able to back up
servers without server configuration so the
management overhead is going down quite
a bit.
“We are able to back up large amounts of
data in a lot shorter time; we have not had
any errors and recovery speeds are more
than suicient. We can now direct our focus
more on protecting data that really matters
and can go to market with a lower price and
a higher quality service.”
HPE is welcoming valuable feedback on
the new HPE RMC solution from a real
cloud service provider like 99X which has
been provided with direct links to HPE RMC
engineers. This co-operation could result in
product improvements and the addition of
new functionality.
Learn more at
hpe.com/storage
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© Copyright 2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. The information contained herein is subject to change without
notice. The only warranties for Hewlett Packard Enterprise products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements
accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
4AA6-7801EEW, October 2016
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