Indiana Wesleyan University and Quantum Corp. -- Real World Solutions

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In the past two decades, Indiana Wesleyan University evolved from a small liberal arts college with 1,000 students to a university with campuses spread over three states. However, with this growth came data backup and restore challenges that the university’s legacy tape library wasn’t designed to accommodate.

“We really needed to address the limitations of our backup system. When it takes longer than 24 hours to do a daily backup, you know you have a problem,” says Everette Webber, director of systems administration for the university. “Restore was another big issue. When we needed to restore a file, we would have to wait for the prior day’s backup to be done before starting. It was impossible to tell users with any confidence when they would have their data back.”

Webber felt it was critical to reduce backup time and have an infrastructure that provided an effective way to restore data quickly. After speaking with several consultants, he was convinced that the university needed a combination of a disk-to-disk solution with deduplication technology and an integrated tape library for archival purposes. Ultimately, Webber chose Quantum’s DXi7500 Express system with 9 TB of disk space, along with a Quantum Scalar i500 tape library. Webber’s team also took the opportunity to update the university’s existing backup software, Symantec NetBackup, to version 6.5.

The team created 40 virtual servers using VMware Consolidated Backup, with 12 virtual servers backing up to the DXi7500 and the remainder backing up to tape. This approach enables the team to back up an entire VM image and perform a file level restore from that image. Critical information that would need to be restored quickly in the event of a disaster, as well as information that is subject to frequent restore requests, is earmarked for the DXi7500, according to Webber. He also reports that restoring files is now a “pain-free process” that allows staff to give a confident estimate of when users will see their data again.

“With our new capabilities, we are backing up things that we couldn’t get to before,” notes Webber. “We’ve established unique retention schedules for different types of data, as well as separate policies for what goes on disk or tape.”