Slash Backup Bandwidth Usage!

 

Savvy Solutions

Last week, I was speaking with a colleague over coffee about an issue we encountered this winter with an organization whose NetApp SnapMirror backups to a remote site were not completing. There was too much data being sent nightly and given the bandwidth at the remote location each backup was unable to complete before the next one started. From there they began stacking up.

Due to the economy, the company did not want to upgrade their bandwidth, hardware, or software, but they needed a solution quickly as it impacted their disaster preparedness. Zerowait’s engineering team has been solving storage problems for over 25 years. We have processes which we follow to uncover root causes and provide a set of possible solutions based on the parameters our customer has provided.

When we investigated this organization’s problem, we found that:

  • Their SnapMirror backups started “stacking” about 30 days prior to them noticing it during a monthly audit.
  • They had not updated their Snapshot and SnapMirror configurations for many years.
  • Their programmers had made some recent changes to internal processes which resulted in many duplicate files and increased the size of their database tables.

We proposed and implemented a three-stage plan:

  • Implement deduplication and compression.
  • Identify the most problematic shares and folders and restructure them to make deduplication more targeted and thus more efficient.
  • Alter the Snapshot schedule to ensure there was time to complete deduplication and compression before any new Snapshot was taken. This was crucial.

Once this was done, the backups were completed in about five hours. Success!

Zerowait’s engineers know the storage toolsets and how to optimize NetApp Storage. They were able to solve the problems without additional bandwidth, hardware, or software.

If you are having a storage problem, please tell us your story. We are good listeners and great problem solvers.

We are looking forward to working with you. Please contact us at +1 302-996-9408 or by email at sales@zerowait.com.

 

Over 20 years providing NetApp Service and Support Affordable NetApp Monitoring!

Zerowait Corporation
707 Kirkwood Hwy, Elsmere DE 19805
Phone: 302.996.9408
Manchester, UK: +44 161.513.7429
Sydney, Australia: +61 2.8518.1271 

 

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