Griffin-Spalding County adds enterprise backup to its SAN

School district saved by backup software

Developments of the week in storage

After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Griffin-Spalding County IT Director Rod Smith realized that his school system's network could have just as easily been destroyed, and its employees left without the data it uses to conduct everyday business. Without the ability to back up student information, the school system would face huge financial repercussions, because money that the system receives from the federal government is based on the availability and contents of that data.

Until a year ago, the school system relied on a “hodge-podge” of different tape-based backup solutions residing on a small storage-area network.

“After Katrina, it became obvious that we needed an enterprise backup solution to protect our data,” says Smith. “But, like other small to mid-level school districts, we didn’t have the financial luxury or resources to purchase or manage a more expensive backup package. We had to back up our data in an enterprise environment and we had to do it in a way that gives us the confidence and assurance that the data is recoverable.”

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After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Griffin-Spalding County IT Director Rod Smith realized that his school system's network could have just as easily been destroyed, and its employees left without the data it uses to conduct everyday business. Without the ability to back up student information, the school system would face huge financial repercussions, because money that the system receives from the federal government is based on the availability and contents of that data.

Until a year ago, the school system relied on a “hodge-podge” of different tape-based backup solutions residing on a small storage-area network.

“After Katrina, it became obvious that we needed an enterprise backup solution to protect our data,” says Smith. “But, like other small to mid-level school districts, we didn’t have the financial luxury or resources to purchase or manage a more expensive backup package. We had to back up our data in an enterprise environment and we had to do it in a way that gives us the confidence and assurance that the data is recoverable.”

Some schools in the New Orleans area, Smith said, faced enormous difficulties securing funding for months after the storm because so much of their student data was lost and unrecoverable.

Even without the threat of a natural disaster, the Griffin-Spalding school system had struggled with existing backups because they had to rely on often untrained employees to create, manage and rotate backup tapes every week.

Smith selected a backup package that wouldn’t break his budget and would protect the school systems’ data in the event of a disaster.

Smith turned to Unitrends’ integrated Rapid Recovery System, which incorporates Data Protection Unit (DPU) and Data Protection Vault (DPV) appliances that protect his servers’ operating systems, applications and user data in both local and offsite locations.

The Unitrends appliances connect to the school system’s network and provide disk-to-disk (D2D) data backup and disaster recovery, effectively eliminating cumbersome tape-based operations. On-premise DPUs also facilitate the electronic “vaulting” of local data to a centrally-located DPV for true disaster recovery protection. The DPUs also serve as onsite hot recovery devices, and their removable disk architecture allow Spalding to archive data on removable drives at a nearby safe location as well.

Finally, the Unitrends DPUs provide BareMetal snapshots of Spalding’s servers, configuration settings and complete operating environment so that entire failed servers can be quickly recovered. These BareMetal recovery capabilities provide sector/track level data protection that avoids the need to format drives, load operating systems and reinstall applications. They can also recover a failed system to new hardware that might not match the original system configuration, which is often times necessary in a true disaster.

Since he implemented Unitrends a year ago, Smith is more confident that the school system’s data is protected and easily recoverable if needed. Spalding has already conducted several BareMetal server recoveries, mostly to address “self-inflicted” problems within the school system’s network.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW and host of both the Masters of Storage and Masters of Servers Solution Centers.