CASE STUDY
tThe business challenge
In a remote island nation like New Zealand,
ensuring constant network connectivity is
notoriously challenging. As a leading power
company and Internet service provider (ISP),
Trustpower relies on uninterrupted network
availability to provide its customers with an
optimal Internet experience.
When ISP Systems Engineer, Gavin Sanders,
joined Trustpower five years ago, they had no
solid backup strategy in place. Data restores
were not being regularly tested, making the
business vulnerable to potential data loss. The
company was primarily using equipment from
another vendor back then, he said, backing
up data using its backup software to tape
libraries and spinning disk NAS units. The
software and physical storage solution were
cumbersome, expensive and did not dedupe
or compress backups effectively.
This was problematic from a business
standpoint, as any downtime in the network
and servers could impact Trustpower’s
service delivery – from customer service,
email communications and ability to
retrieve customer data, to the worst-case
scenario of customers not receiving any
network service at all.
The incumbent backup solution was not
satisfactory as it could not ensure recovery
of the production environment in the event
of downtime, which could limit their ability
to provide customers with reliable Internet
service. Furthermore, a physical storage and
backup system was not very suitable for
a virtual environment. Sanders said: “We
really needed a reliable solution that was
very well-integrated and designed to work
with VMware.”
In addition to a powerful backup solution
that could keep their networks and servers
running 24/7, Trustpower also needed a
dedicated backup target system that was
cost-effective, self-sufficient and offered
strong deduplication. With newly opened
data centers in New Zealand and Australia
to increase proximity to its customer base,
the ISP also needed a reliable replication
tool that could move their data between
data centers.
Lastly, the customer support provided
by the incumbent solution was often
unavailable at a time zone suited to
the New Zealand region and as a result,
Trustpower had to factor in long waiting
times. Sanders said: “We’re quite remote,
and if we do need support, we’d like it to
be pretty instant as support is a priceless
lifeline in the event of a crisis.”
The Veeam–ExaGrid solution
After more than 10 years of using Veeam
solutions in his previous roles, Sanders was
confident in Veeam’s backup performance,
especially in virtual environments. He
introduced the Veeam Availability Suite to
Trustpower’s ISP business, initially only as
a backup solution but later as a replication
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