Client: Axpo
Industry: Energy
Solution: Two DD460 Restorers
Company
Axpo, based in Baden, Switzerland, has quickly become one of the leading Swiss energy
companies. With strong local ties and an international focus, Axpo provides energy and
energyrelated services to nearly three million people and thousands of businesses in
northeastern and central Switzerland. The company focuses on developing its presence in
the European energy markets, the Energy Exchanges and the natural gas business.
Customer Challenges
Axpo Informatik, Axpo’s IT services division, runs a centralized data center
serving all state Swiss energy providers. As such, it must carefully manage its
clients’ data and conscientiously plan any changes to the data center
infrastructure.
Axpo Informatik previously backed up information to a traditional tape system, but
the company’s growing data pushed the system to capacity. Adding to the pressure
to find a new solution for backup and recovery, clients requested that Axpo Informatik
extend archive times from 14 to 30 days and replicate data to a secondary system.
However, adding new tape libraries and drives would have significantly increased the
cost of backups — which would not have gone over well with clients.
Data Domain Solution
Until recently, Nico Hodel, Systems Engineer at Axpo Informatik, found that the rate
of innovation among backup technologies didn’t keep pace with the increase in data
volumes that companies face. Hodel felt that, though new technologies have improved
performance, most have done little to improve the backup process.
In evaluating its options, Axpo Informatik considered disk staging, which entails
storing backup copies on a secondary system. However, licensing costs ruled out that
approach. Likewise, the cost and administrative hassles of virtual tape libraries (VTL)
also put that option out of reach.
Vcare Infosystems AG, a Data Domain channel partner, introduced Axpo to Capacity
Optimized Storage (COS) from Data Domain.
With capacity optimization, Data Domain offers high compression rates and
reliability, and accelerates backups and restores. In addition to improved performance
and simpler administration, Data Domain would allow Axpo to preserve its investment in
its existing backup software. Similar to a NAS (Network Attached Storage), Data Domain
enables file sharing and looks like a virtual tape drive to the company’s backup
software.
In tests of the DD400 Restorer, Axpo Informatik saw compression ratios of 44:1 when
backing up its SAP database. Those impressive rates, and the success of Data Domain
installations with other Vcare Infosystems clients, gave Axpo the confidence to leverage
Data Domain for client data.
Currently, the company has a DD460 Restorer, which fits easily in a 19-inch rack,
compared to Axpo’s tape library that was 14 times that size. With a storage
capacity of 3.8 terabytes, the DD460 holds 80 terabytes of compressed data, giving Axpo
the capacity it needs for growing data.
Business Benefits
Axpo Informatik now has a costeffective solution for meeting clients’ needs.
Currently, Data Domain provides a 20:1 compression rate across all backed up data. With
increased capacity, Axpo Informatik also achieves client requirements for storing data
for up to 30 days. Data Domain has reduced backup times for database files, which now
take only a few minutes.
For Hodel, backup has gone from a start-stop operation with tape drives and tape
media to a smooth process. Axpo Informatik also has peace of mind in terms of backup
reliability.
“Data Domain continuously performs an integrity check on all data,” Hodel
said. “With tape, we couldn’t be assured that there is no data
loss.”
By moving off of tape, Axpo Informatik has also simplified their administration. The
team no longer has to barcode and migrate tapes, set up tape shares or configure
retention pools. “I reduced my administration time by 40 percent,” Hodel
said. “The DD460 eliminates all of the mundane tasks I did before.”
Axpo can also easily customize and configure Data Domain based on its requirements.
Connecting to the network, defining security settings and creating safe sets only took
Hodel less than half a day.
The Data Domain solution also allows the division to satisfy clients’ requests
for data replication. Axpo Informatik added a second DD460 Restorer that copies data in
parallel.
Beyond capacity, reliability and administrative benefits, Data Domain has been a
cost-effective alternative to tape libraries and disk staging. By compressing data
volume to between five and eight percent of its original size, Data Domain significantly
reduces licensing fees for users.
“I reduced my administration time by 40 percent. The DD460 eliminates
all of the mundane tasks I did before.”
Nico Hodel
Systems Engineer
Axpo Informatik
