Data Domain Case Study: Mohler, Nixon & Williams

Client Name: Mohler, Nixon & Williams
Industry: Certified Public Accounting Firm
Data Domain Products: DD200 Restorer and DD Replicator software module

About Mohler, Nixon & Williams

The Certified Public Accounting Firm of Mohler, Nixon & Williams is one of Silicon Valley’s premier advisors to individuals and businesses. For over 20 years, the firm has helped individuals and businesses reach their financial goals. The firm boasts more than 4,000 clients throughout the world, employs 22 partners who have over 250 years of "Big 4" accounting firm experience. Along with company partners, there are more than 100 professionals who are dedicated and committed to excellent customer service and top quality consulting expertise. For seven consecutive years, Mohler, Nixon & Williams has obtained the status of being one of the elite “Best of the Best” according to Inside Public Accounting Report. The company has offices in Campbell and Palo Alto, California.

The Mohler, Nixon & Williams IT Challenge

In early 2004, Mohler, Nixon & Williams began looking for a more efficient way to manage their long backup window, a process that typically took 12 hours each day. They were also grappling with the longer-term challenge of looking for a viable Disaster Recovery/Business Continuation solution to protect the company’s most important data. Realizing that their data storage needs would continue to grow, and due to new federal and state regulations, the company desired a capacity optimized backup solution that not only required less manual administration than tape libraries, but something that could fully recover their client data in a timely manner should disaster occur.

The high-availability portion of their strategy was provided by approximately 500GB of Direct Attached Storage for their Accounting, Groupware and Mail data. But backing up this data to seven DLT tape drives was both slow and labor intensive.

Mohler Nixon Purchase Criteria
Client Pain Issues	Data Domain Solution
Client needed more streamlined, less laborintensive backup process than tape	As a D2D solution, the DD200 negated their need for continued tape handling for routine backups
Client desired the ability to rapidly restore up to one month of data without having to find and load tapes	The capacity optimized DD200 allows them to confidently store (and restore) up to three months of data online
Client desired solution where data could be backed up to remote location	The purchase of the DD200 replication software module enabled the client to back data to a remote office location in case disaster should strike at their corporate headquarters

Mohler, Nixon & Williams Evaluation Criteria

Ned Rendell, who heads the data center at Mohler Nixon & Williams, began looking for an alternative backup solution, one that could rapidly restore the previous month’s data - without having to find and load tapes. He also desired a solution that would shorten their backup window and allow them to perform multiple full backups per day, a function that would limit the amount of lost data in the event of disk or application failure. And he hoped the new backup solution could be the impetus behind a longer-term Disaster Recovery strategy.

While investigating disk-based storage solutions, he learned of the Data Domain DD200 Restorer, an appliance that would not only give him the speed advantages of disk, but also the fast and accurate restore capabilities that he desired. The DD200 also provided unique assurance that the backed up data was actually restorable, due to the product’s Data Invulnerability Architecture. Rendell began using the DD200 as a beta customer, a positive experience that confirmed his decision to purchase the product after a thorough evaluation. In mid-2004, when Data Domain added its replication software module, the DD200 Replicator, Rendell purchased an additional appliance so that his data could be backed up to an offsite location should disaster strike his corporate headquarters. The remote Replicator receives 1TB of data replicated from the main office. Due to the low overhead of Global Compression, replicating this amount of data only takes up a fraction of his network bandwidth.

Data Domain Solution

To meet his immediate short-term and longer-term goals, the Data Domain DD200 proved to be the most logical and cost-effective solution for Mohler, Nixon & Williams. And the 20x compression ratio of the DD200 would enable Rendell to store more data on his systems for a longer amount of time as well as send recoverable data to a remote location. The DD200 would also integrate easily into his network because of its CIFS compatibility. The initial appliance met or exceeded all of their purchase criteria and they found the appliance to be the perfect complement to the company’s existing tape library strategy. The company’s most frequently needed data is stored locally on the DD200 and the information can be restored in a matter of minutes, and thereby reducing their reliance on tape. The second appliance enables them to meet their Disaster Recovery needs by allowing them to quickly restore systems at the remote site. Within an hour or less, their business critical applications can be up and running, whereas before the DD200 Replicator, it would have taken them more than a day.

Mohler, Nixon & Williams Business Results

Mohler, Nixon & Williams now has a Disaster Recovery/Business Continuation strategy they’re confident in. By implementing the Data Domain DD200 and its capacity optimized replication module, all systems are now efficiently backed up to one central location and restoring files is much easier as there is no need for tape handling. In addition, they have cut their daily backup windows in half and they now have assurance that their missioncritical data is fully restorable. The new recovery appliance also ensures that internal users will experience no downtime during backups and restores.

Through lower staffing costs, the need to buy fewer tapes, and a reduced need to recover data from offsite storage, Rendell estimates the DD200 will save Mohler, Nixon & Williams thousands of dollars annually in both direct and indirect costs.

• DD200 Enabled Them to Simplify Backup Routine: The DD200 simplifies the backup procedures: gone are the six older DLT tape drives and 126 tapes. Now, only six tapes and one LTO tape drive is required.
• DD200 Enabled Them to Continue Using Veritas: Backup Exec 9.1 was the company's entrenched backup software
• DD200 Shortened Their Backup Windows by 50 Percent: Backup windows went from 12 hours to six hours for full backups
• DD200 Integrated Into Their Network: Support for both CIFS and NFS allowed us to easily integrate the DD200 into our network.
• DD200 Offered Replication Module: Client could backup to remote office location

“I have been using the DD200 for the past year and recently deployed the new replication module. Since implementing the DD200 in our data center, we’ve retired six DLT tape drives and the 126 tapes used to back-up our data. The combination of the DD200 with replication gives me a piece of mind that my company’s most critical data is covered by a viable Disaster Recovery solution.”

Ned Rendell
MIS Director

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