GISA backs up 75
Terabytes per week across multiple operating systems
with a highly scalable Backup solution
The Challenge
GISA GmbH is a leading IT company in central Germany offering a complete range of IT solutions, from
process consulting for development and implementation of IT solutions, to complete outsourcing of
business processes and IT infrastructure.
The company's computer centre ranks as one of the most efficient in Germany and has earned the coveted SAP® Operation
Quality Member certificate., GISA is headquartered in Halle (Saale), with regional and local offices in Chemnitz, Markkleeberg,
Cottbus, Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg and Düsseldorf. Its subsidiaries include ICS and SASKIA and the entire group
employs around 470 staff.
In 1997, GISA required a continuous unified backup system and a StorageTek Library 9710 to secure its company data and to ensure the safety and integrity of its systems so that in
the event of an emergency, it could immediately re-establish company operations.
The company currently operates multiple operating systems, including Open VMS (Virtual Memory System), which was an advanced 32-Bit-operating system at the time of implementation. The backup solution they were looking for needed not only to be robust but also capable of being managed across all its operating systems, as well as standing up to future infrastructure changes. The company was backing up 2 terabytes per week and needed a solution that was highly-scalable, and could be expanded over time.
The Solution
After exploring and testing a variety of backup solutions, HT Backup from BridgeHead Software was selected as the product which best addressed all of GISA's requirements. HT Backup provides an intelligent, highly flexible, scalable, rich functionality, storage-management solution, supporting almost any platform; including VMS.
This scalability was the deciding factor for GISA, added to the fact that BridgeHead Software has been providing and implementing archiving, backup, hierarchical storage management, and media management solutions since the late 1980's for more than 1000 customers.
The Benefits
Since implementing HT Backup, GISA has experienced
many positive benefits. The solution's scalability
has far exceeded the company's expectations as Jens
Gillmeister, data protection specialist at GISA
GmbH explained: "Our weekly backup now
includes SAP data from 120 databases as well as
securing data from around 600 servers, to safeguard
a volume of data of over 75 terabytes per week.
We are amazed at the reliability of the system and
that we are still able to use the same core technology
for our backup solution that we have been using
for over 10 years, which was initially implemented
to backup only two terabytes per week."
Over the last yen years GISA has installed and relied on StorageTek silos for managing and backing up data, including the StorageTek L700, the larger Powderhorn 9310 and a StorageTek SL8500. The ease and flexibility with which GISA has been able to integrate these third party solutions to the BridgeHead Software HT Backup system has also benefited the company both financially and in terms of maximising initial investment and in terms of efficiency. A Siemens CentricStor was also added to the mix as well as a virtual tape library using virtual tapes for speed which were then later backed up to physical tapes. The StorageTek and CentricStor systems were all successfully and quickly integrated with the BridgeHead Software solution. Only minor customisation was required.
"The BridgeHead Software solution has
run smoothly for the last ten years and has allowed
us to change our IT landscape without any significant
issues or challenges", reports Dr.
Steffen Vieweg, Business Director GISA GmbH.
"From an economic standpoint, that is the best one
can expect from an IT system and not typical in
the IT industry today!"
BridgeHead Software solutions support most operating systems, including VMS, which has all but disappeared from today's market and which in Germany is used in few applications such as the mobile phone SMS area and some stock trading systems.
First Class Support
Dr. Vieweg at GISA explains that a long-standing
customer relationship is not conceivable today without
a special service commitment from the solution provider:
"This commitment to service separates
the wheat from the chaff. When one needs to secure
large volumes of data that can grow exponentially
and must be customized to specific and exacting
requirements, one doesn’t remain in a ten year relationship
with a company whose service ends with a signature
and a handshake."
"Additionally, BridgeHead Software customizes
and adapts the product to its customers' needs using
its own highly competent development team." For
GISA, BridgeHead Software developed two software
programmes:
1) A special agent for the BCV-Backup (Business
Continuity Volumes) for its SAP Oracle databases
that enabled the entire online system to be secured.
This backup method is based on split-mirror technology
and is divided into a pure snapshot backup and another
backup of split data on tapes. The snapshot produces
a backup copy of the Oracle databases on Business
Continuity Volumes for quick data recovery without
saving files on tape.
2) additional modules for the online SAP database
MaxDB.
"The crucial questions are: will it
work and work well; and if needed, will quick and
efficient support be available? And last but not
least: How well were the customer requirements integrated
into the product?", says Dr. Vieweg."
BridgeHead Software and its team is characterized
by an outstanding commitment to customization, so
GISA always has the possibility to adapt to changes
without problems!"
About BridgeHead
BridgeHead Software is a
leading provider of backup, recovery and archive software for enterprises. With over 450 customers worldwide BridgeHead leads the
field in Enterprise Data Management.
