GMAC-RFC Case Study

“With the Data Domain systems, the restore process now takes minutes instead of the hours it used to take to recall and load the tapes. We no longer have the problems that we were experiencing and it works like a dream.”

Dieter Orth
Operational Improvement Manager
GMAC-RFC Ltd.

• GMAC-RFC Case Study (PDF)

Backup Confidence Bolstered

GMAC-RFC is based in the United Kingdom and is currently transitioning its business focus from being an award winning mortgage lender to becoming an asset management company. GMAC-RFC has been operating in the UK since 1998 and is a wholly owned subsidiary of ResCap (Residential Capital Corporation) with headquarters based in Bracknell, Berkshire.

Operating through a network of mortgage advisors rather than brick and mortar branch offices, the innovative application of information technology is vital to the success of GMAC-RFC. Partnering with Data Domain has bolstered GMAC-RFC’s confidence in its enterprise data protection infrastructure. Today, the backup and restore process is streamlined and reliable, and rapid disaster recovery (DR) response times enable GMAC-RFC to ensure business continuity.

Customer Challenges

As a financial institution, protecting the company’s sensitive data is of extreme importance for GMAC-RFC. According to Dieter Orth, Operational Improvement Manager for GMAC-RFC, “We realized that our previous backup solution was no longer providing the level of service that we required. Due to constant data growth, the amount of data that we had to backup just kept increasing. As a result our backup window was also expanding, and approaching the point when it would become unacceptable.”

With backups taking longer to complete, the company’s target of getting all backup tapes off-site by 9:00 a.m. each day was nearing the point where it would be difficult to meet. The knock-on effect of not completing backups in time was the risk of impacting daytime operations. While the tape drives were busy creating tapes, it meant that they were not available for other tasks, such as performing restores.

In addition, there was a growing number of reoccurring problems with the virtual tape library (VTL), which was beginning to fail far too often. These failures were impacting the backup process, causing delays in getting critical data off-site as well as the ability to recover data.

The restore process was also inefficient and time-consuming. Data backed up with the VTL was only available for a day as the VTL disks reached their capacity soon thereafter and the data had to be copied to tape. Therefore, to restore data after the first 24-hours, the IT team needed to recall tapes, a process which typically required a day for off-site tapes to be returned to the data center.

GMAC-RFC’s backup process was clearly in danger of not meeting the company’s needs, a challenge that had to be urgently addressed.

Data Domain Solution

Having acknowledged that the existing VTL solution was no longer providing the required level of service, GMAC-RFC turned to its solution provider, Redstor Ltd. for a new backup and recovery solution. Redstor recommended Data Domain deduplication storage for disk backup and network-based disaster recovery.

GMAC-RFC’s goal was to implement a local backup solution and establish off-site replication in a single step. To pilot the technology, the team set up a test environment at the company’s primary and DR sites, which are physically separated in accordance with the Financial Service Authority (FSA) recommendations, and conducted extensive testing of backup, restore and DR scenarios.

GMAC-RFC defined 35 test cases including backup and restores of different data types. Tests included: checking replication to the DR site and measuring the time; restoring data at the primary site; restoring data from the recovery site back to the primary site in case a backup had been corrupted at the primary site; and finally conducting a full restore at the DR site in case the primary site was lost altogether. Having proven the Data Domain system’s ability to transmit data from the primary data site to the secondary data site in just minutes, the team was confident that in the event of a disaster it could bring the systems back up and GMAC-RFC could stay in business.

Satisfied that Data Domain deduplication storage was the right choice, GMAC-RFC implemented two DD580 systems with one ES20 disk shelf at the primary data center site, and one DD580 system with two ES20 disk shelves at the replication site.

Business Benefits

Today, Data Domain is responsible for protecting all of GMAC-RFC’s enterprise data, including Exchange, file servers and databases, located on a large number of servers. GMAC-RFC has managed to significantly reduce its reliance on tape, now only performing one full backup to tape a month. All other backups are done directly to the Data Domain systems, comprising full daily backups for some applications and full weekly backups with daily incrementals for everything else. GMAC-RFC is now able to meet its backup windows and successfully adhere to its backup policy.

The Data Domain solution also enables a far longer data retention period of two weeks during which backup data is held on disk.

With most data restore requests coming from the previous week, retrieval is now extremely fast. “We benefit from not having to go to tape to retrieve data,” says Orth. “With the Data Domain systems, the restore process now takes minutes instead of the hours it used to take to recall and load the tapes. We no longer have the problems that we were experiencing and it works like a dream.”

GMAC-RFC technicians have recouped valuable time and now only deal with tape once a month for full tape backups.

The biggest benefits associated with the GMAC-RFC deployment are with data replication and recovery processes. Once the backups are completed at the primary site, files are replicated to the DR site within minutes, and recovery is equally fast.

From production pilot, to installation, to on-going product support, the financial services company reports excellent service from both Data Domain and its solution provider, Redstor. “We are extremely pleased with our decision to implement Data Domain systems, and we are eager to find additional ways to leverage these products going forward,” concludes Orth.