2013 StorageCraft. All rights reserved. CASE STUDY: CONNECTICUT COMPUTER SERVICE

Transcription

1 1 CASE STUDY: CONNECTICUT COMPUTER SERVICE

2 TRANSITIONING TO MANAGED SERVICES Thirty years ago, the managed services provider (MSP) business model didn t exist. So in 1983, when Connecticut Computer Service (CTCOMP) started offering IT infrastructure solutions to small and medium-sized businesses in Connecticut and western Massachusetts, they used the traditional solution provider model. Over the years, CTCOMP adopted more of a hybrid model: consulting with the IT staff of larger customers, and providing complete data-center-to-endpoint support for smaller customers. About eight years ago, CTCOMP began supporting both cloud and onpremise solutions. As more of their customers moved to cloud-based technologies, CTCOMP started transitioning to a new MSP business model and, transitioning away from their old backup and disaster recovery solution. It became obvious that we needed a different disaster recovery platform, says Tom Riggio, vice president of sales at CTCOMP. The tape-based solution CTCOMP had been selling for the past 15 years didn t fit their new, multi-tiered MSP model. We were able to restore their data in less than two hours. John Dietle, Executive Vice President, Connecticut Computer Service 2

3 A BETTER SOLUTION THAN TAPE Their tape backup vendor simply couldn t provide the backup, replication, and rapid recovery that CTCOMP now needed. We wanted to change a massive part of our backup and disaster recovery business to a more collaborative approach, with more service levels for customers to choose from, Riggio says. So we needed to find a better solution than tape. A few months ago, CTCOMP learned about StorageCraft from Synnex, a distribution partner. They realized that the StorageCraft MSP Partner Program would allow CTCOMP to offer a wider range of services to their customers, both large and small. We d been looking for a platform for data backup to disk, but couldn t find one manufacturer to provide us with a complete range of solutions until we found StorageCraft, says Riggio. Tom Mucha, senior systems engineer at CTCOMP, installed StorageCraft ShadowProtect in the lab and started training the CTCOMP technical staff. It ran perfectly on their HP hardware, so John Dietle, CTCOMP executive vice president, was eager to try ShadowProtect on a new customer. This particular customer didn t have any backup software in place, Dietle says. The client knew their IT systems were getting older, and the company was looking for a support provider. The business relied on huge CAD drawings and accounting applications. You need a backup solution or we can t support you, Dietle told them. The customer agreed. Just three days later, the new customer called CTCOMP. One of their 10-year-old servers had died. Hoping it was a system board that could quickly be replaced, Mucha discovered that two out of three hard drives had failed. It seemed that all of the customer s data was gone. We used ShadowProtect to restore their files to the NAS, and they were able to work on their critical files while they waited for new server hardware, Mucha says. Even with all the giant CAD drawings, we were able to restore their data in less than two hours. It would ve been an eight-hour process with tape, and they would ve lost a whole business day. Instead of losing a new account, CTCOMP won a customer for life. Thank God for StorageCraft, because it could ve been a nightmare, Dietle says. They were happy to be up and running, and very grateful to get their data back. But we were a lot more grateful than they were. Because this customer had an on-premise backup, it was a like-to-like (Dell-to-Dell) restore. But Dietle wondered what would happen in a like-to-unlike or virtual-to-physical restore scenario. We were fairly nervous, being so young with StorageCraft ourselves, he says. So when we got back, we took their Dell server backup and restored it to an HP server at our location. Again, it took only two hours. We had so much success with that test, we took it to VMware as well. In mid-june 2013, Mucha installed ShadowProtect on the customer s Dell servers. It was our first live customer installation of ShadowProtect outside of a lab situation, so we didn t know what to expect, he says. 3

4 SHADOWPROTECT WAS WILDLY SUCCESSFUL The unexpected live customer test, and their own lab tests afterward, convinced CTCOMP they d found the right disaster recovery platform. Mucha and Dietle had allotted a full day to test the two restore scenarios in the CTCOMP lab. They finished both tests in only half a day, and ShadowProtect sealed the deal for CTCOMP. Tape restores couldn t compete. The restores from a different physical box, as well as a virtual box, really sold StorageCraft to me from that point on, says Dietle. The restores were so fast! We weren t expecting to have to rely on it so soon after our first live install, but ShadowProtect was wildly successful. In addition to fast and reliable technology, StorageCraft gives CTCOMP a more flexible range of backup and disaster recovery services and an affordable, phased approach to offer their customers. In the past, some customers didn t adopt our advice on backup and disaster recovery because of the expense, Dietle explains. Now StorageCraft lets us gradually work those customers into a more secure strategy. First we back up to disk, and when they can afford to, we replicate their data offsite. Then, when they can afford true availability, they can come to our data center. With a 30-year history of successful IT solutions, CTCOMP is proud of being picky with technology vendors. We stand behind premium products, so we choose our partners carefully, Dietle says. We prefer to have fewer partners but more premium offerings. Going forward, our primary backup and disaster recovery partner will be StorageCraft. The restores from a different physical box, as well as a virtual box, really sold StorageCraft to me John Dietle, Executive Vice President, Connecticut Computer Service 4

5 ABOUT CONNECTICUT COMPUTER SERVICE Founded in 1983, Connecticut Computer Service (CTCOMP) has been providing IT solutions to area businesses for 30 years. As Connecticut s only combination Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, Hewlett Packard Elite Partner with Authorized Service Center, Cisco Premier Partner, and Citrix Silver Solution Provider, CTCOMP provides comprehensive service and support. With headquarters in Plantsville, and data centers in both Southington and East Hartford, CTCOMP offers services ranging from backup and disaster recovery, data replication, and data center virtualization to network design, data security, desktop deployment, and hardware repair. CTCOMP solutions are custom-developed based on the current and future needs of each customer. Account executives help customers define goals, develop strategies and implement the most efficient solutions. Their philosophy is, Using technology solutions as a means to increase the success of a business over the long-term. 5

6 ABOUT STORAGECRAFT At StorageCraft, the goal of complete disaster recovery drives everything we do. Our StorageCraft Recover- Ability solution is an end-to-end, best-in-class backup and disaster recovery solution that is both fast and reliable. STORAGECRAFT RECOVER-ABILITY It starts with a good backup. Our award-winning StorageCraft ShadowProtect takes complete, pristine images of your machines, including all your operating systems, applications, services, and settings. It then records changes at the sector level, so you always have an up-to-date copy of every machine in your IT environment, whether it s a critical server or an employee laptop, physical or virtual. We even work with specialized database servers, like SQL, SharePoint, or Exchange. You can get granular recovery in Exchange with ShadowProtect Granular Recovery for Exchange. You have complete control over the frequency of your backups and you can set rules for consolidation and retention to manage your precious storage space using StorageCraft ImageManager. Plus, with StorageCraft ShadowControl CMD you can monitor the machines in your backup environment from a single interface and get alerts when a machine is running out of space, when a backup doesn t happen, or when any of a variety of conditions you specify is met. We also give you tools to test your backups using StorageCraft VirtualBoot and StorageCraft Image- Ready technologies, which gives you confidence that your data is safe and that a disaster won t shut you down or hold you up. Then we make it easy to replicate your backup images with StorageCraft Cloud Services or to our cloud or to your own offsite location so you can always have your data close when you need it and at a good safe distance when a disaster comes. When it does, you can launch your backups as virtual machines with VirtualBoot or mount them as drives for complete, granular access to your data. Or you can pre-stage the recovery of a backup image in a virtual machine with our patented StorageCraft CONTACT US StorageCraft Technology Corporation S. Election Road, Ste. 100 Draper, Utah USA Phone: Fax: contactus@storagecraft.com HeadStart Restore technology, so if your main server blows up, you can be up and running in minutes. You can even virtualize your data in our cloud so even Mother Nature can t keep you down. Then, you can rebuild your infrastructure and recover to all kinds of machines, physical or virtual, using our StorageCraft Hardware Independent Restore technology or ShadowProtect IT Edition. You can t be sure what kind of disaster will strike you next, but with the StorageCraft Recover-Ability solution, you can be sure it doesn t matter. You ll be just fine. Copyright 2013 StorageCraft Technology Corporation. All rights reserved. This publication is for informational purposes only. STORAGECRAFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, IN THIS PUBLICATION. StorageCraft, ShadowProtect, ShadowControl, intelligentftp, ShadowStream, and HeadStart Restore names and logos are registered trademarks and ImageReady, CMD, VirtualBoot, Hardware Independent Restore, Recover-Ability, ImageManager, Cloud Services, and ShadowCloud names and logos are trademarks of StorageCraft Technology Corporation. All other brands and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. 6