Ecosystem
Modernizing backup systems for a multinational chemical company
Our client is a chemical company operating in more than 50 countries. Being one of the world’s top 10 in its domain, the client constantly looks for opportunities to upgrade its infrastructure and processes to maintain its reputation. As such, the client needed to overhaul its disparate and outdated backup systems to ensure data security, privacy and integrity.
The Challenge
Data protection and backup issues across plants and offices
The company faced critical challenges with its data backup systems, which hampered its operational efficiency and posed risks to data integrity. Its legacy backup system relied on outdated, magnetic tape cartridges. They were using multiple backup software solutions and taped drives, and the idea was to have a single pane of glass while moving towards a tapeless environment. This was not only astronomically expensive but also time-consuming and error-prone, often resulting in:
- Siloed backup approach resulting in higher operating costs with extensive manual interventions
- Inefficient management due to multiple owners managing the backups
- High TCO for backup, including Microsoft’s Azure native backup in the cloud, multiple backup tools and tape drives
- Inability to meet backup SLAs due to poor performance and a complex environment
- Risk of disaster recovery failure due to incomplete backups and compromised/partial data availability
The Objective
Backup reliability, process efficiency and cost savings
The firm needed to modernize the company's data backup systems across locations for superior data protection. Moreover, centralization of the backup management for process efficiency was another key requirement. This transformative endeavor entailed:
- Comprehensive backup management: Establish a centralized backup management system to streamline operations across all locations and ensure data integrity
- Modernization of data protection solutions: Upgrade from outdated tape systems to state-of-the-art backup solutions by Dell Technologies and HCLTech for scalability and flexibility
- Cost optimization: Reduce backup-related costs by implementing a pay-per-use model for data protection services across the organization
- Single-vendor approach: Eliminate the multi-vendor model for data protection in data centers and the cloud (Microsoft Azure)
- Enhanced disaster recovery capabilities: Implement robust disaster recovery solutions to ensure complete and reliable backups, minimizing the risk of data loss and ensuring data availability
The Solution
Dell Data Protection Suite, PowerProtect Data Domain and APEX Backup Services as part of HCLTech Hybrid Cloud as-a-Service
Our approach to backup modernization focused on implementing Dell Data Protection Suite (DPS), Dell APEX Backup Services (ABS) and Hybrid Cloud as-a-Service to enable a comprehensive backup management system that enhances data accessibility and integrity across the client's global network.
- Deployed Dell DPS and PowerProtect Data Domain at both primary and secondary data centers, including replication, centralized reporting and management for seamless backup operations across multiple global locations.
- Deployed Dell DPS and PowerProtect Data Domain in Hyperscaler to provide best-in-class performance with the lowest TCO compared to native backup tools.
- Implemented Dell APEX Backup Services as a true backup-as-a-service model for smaller branch offices, ensuring efficient migration processes and consistent backup operations. This model eliminates hardware requirements and provides a software-defined model to protect branch offices with a single pane of glass for monitoring, reporting and operations,
- Centralized management and reporting: Created a centralized console for backup management, combining cloud and on-premises for improved oversight across branches.
- Cost-efficient consumption-based model: The solution offers scalable data protection and cyber-resiliency, ensuring the same level of protection for both on-premise and cloud workloads. It provides a cost-efficient consumption-based model leveraging HCLTech Utility for Everything (U4X).
- End-to-end cyber-resiliency: with anomaly detection in Dell DPS and zero trust architecture of the PowerProtect Data Domain, this solution provides end-to-end cyber-resiliency for the end customer. We ensured that cyber-resiliency is also included in APEX Backup Services.
The Impact
Cost reduction, efficiency gain and granular monitoring and reporting
The modernization initiative improved data backup and management efficiency, ensuring total security, privacy and disaster recovery. Adopting advanced data protection technologies reinforced the company's ability to safeguard its critical data assets effectively.
- Improved cyber resilience and assured compliance: Enhanced data protection capabilities, reducing data loss and compliance risks. Provides superior data resiliency and security through advanced features such as anomaly detection, immutability, end-to-end encryption and multifactor authentication.
- Improved backup and restore efficiencies with better TCO: Realized a 50% reduction in backup-related costs, contributing to significant savings across the organization. The client also experienced significant performance improvement, helping them meet their backup SLAs
- Ease of deployment and management: Better reporting and management of backup processes, facilitating quicker operational responses through centralized management.
- Reduction in cloud-service cost and higher scalability: A robust framework that supports ongoing data management needs while providing flexibility for future upgrades and modifications
