Microsoft Customer Solution Case Study Shipping Company Halves Data Backup Time, Lowers Costs, Boosts Dependability Overview Country or Region: United States Industry: Transportation and Logistics Customer Profile Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) USA is the U.S. subsidiary of one of the world s leading global shipping lines. The company has 1,200 employees working from 26 offices across the United States. Business Situation The IT staff spent hours each week making tape backups, resolving tape problems, and restoring deleted files for users, and MSC USA wanted a more reliable and convenient way to protect critical data. Solution MSC USA brought in Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, a disk and tape-based backup solution, to protect its database, messaging, and fileserver data, which all runs on Microsoft software. Benefits Improved data protection Backups 50 percent faster Increased staff productivity Backup savings of $15,000 annually With Data Protection Manager 2007, we have a more dependable and flexible backup solution; it s a good feeling to have. Sergio Fedelini, IT Infrastructure Manager, Mediterranean Shipping Company USA Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) USA is a subsidiary of a Geneva, Switzerland based shipping company that operates 352 container vessels worldwide. The 10-person MSC USA IT infrastructure staff manages the data, computers, and network for 1,200 employees working in 26 U.S. offices, and there is never enough time in their days. To shortcut the major time drain surrounding daily data backup and file recovery, MSC deployed Microsoft 2007, a diskand-tape backup solution. The IT staff has watched backup times drop by 50 percent and has recaptured at least 10 hours a week through easier backups and faster file recoveries. Most important, MSC data is more reliably protected by a disk-based backup solution that is independent of slower tape systems. Savings from IT efficiencies, tape-related savings, and backup software licensing fees will top U.S.$15,000 annually.
Mediterranean Shipping Company USA uses Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 to protect its Microsoft software workload, totaling 2.6 terabytes of data. Situation Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) USA is the United States subsidiary of Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A., a privately owned company based in Geneva, Switzerland, that is one of the world s leading global shipping lines. MSC S.A. has 30,000 employees and operates 352 container vessels that carry a wide variety of cargo between the world s ports for its customers. MSC USA is based in New York City, operates 26 offices across the U.S., and has 1,200 employees. MSC (USA) has a central data center in Warren, New Jersey, and a backup data center in Manhattan. An IT staff of 10 people operates the New Jersey data center 24 hours a day, in shifts of 5 or 6 people. This small team has its hands full serving 1,200 workers in 26 locations and keeping the company s technology infrastructure up and running with no interruptions. Data backup-related issues were a regular headache and time drain for this busy staff. The company backed up branch-office and data-center data onto tape systems that required a great deal of attention and provoked a great deal of annoyance. One of our big issues with a purely tapebased solution was that we were tied to hardware devices that frequently failed or malfunctioned, explains Sergio Fedelini, IT Infrastructure Manager for MSC USA. When a tape drive was down, we had no backups. We often spent 5 to 7 hours a week resolving tape library issues. The IT staff wanted to be able to capture the company s ever-changing business-critical data with more flexibility and dependability than tape alone could provide. Also, the company s tape library had just six drives, which meant that the company could run only six backup jobs at a time. It also took time to import, export, and label tapes every day. We spent 10 hours each week doing tape backups in our central data center, says Mike Hill, Assistant IT Infrastructure Manager for MSC USA. With only five or six people here each day, it was a significant drain on resources to have one person sidetracked with backup issues. Part of this workload was recovering accidentally deleted files for users; the IT staff received an average of two such requests each day. Each recovery took about an hour, which meant two hours a day eaten up by just returning the business to the status quo rather than moving it forward with new projects. Plus, our business users were inconvenienced by waiting for a recovery. Vessel schedules, contracts, and rates are all critical for our workers. If a user damages or deletes a file, it s bad news for us and our customers. Solution Fedelini and Hill surveyed the disk-based backup solutions on the market, including replication technologies. They selected Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, an integrated disk-and-tape backup solution designed to protect Microsoft software-based workloads. The software s Microsoft orientation was a chief attraction for MSC USA, since most of the data it wanted to protect resides on server computers running the Windows Server 2003 operating system. Fedelini and Hill also liked how tightly Microsoft had integrated 2007 with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 database software, which runs most of the company s databases, and with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, which runs the
The weekly IT timesaving from using Data Protection Manager is worth approximately $10,000 a year, and we ll reduce our Veritas support costs by 50 percent another $5,000 annual savings. Sergio Fedelini, IT Infrastructure Manager, Mediterranean Shipping Company USA company s messaging infrastructure. Also, was easier to set up and manage and more costeffective to use than competitive technologies. MSC USA runs System Center Data Protection Manager on a single Dell PowerEdge server computer and uses it to back up more than 2.6 terabytes of data distributed across 35 servers: 14 servers running SQL Server 2005: 1.6 terabytes (TB) of data 13 servers running Exchange Server 2003: 860 GB of data 8 file-share servers running Windows Server 2003: 200 GB of data The company plans to extend System Center Data Protection Manager to more workloads, such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 collaboration sites once it has that software deployed to provide redundancy for additional business-critical applications. Benefits By moving its SQL Server 2005, Exchange Server 2003 and, soon, Office SharePoint Server 2007 data stores under the care of Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, MSC USA gets more reliable protection of its business-critical data. The IT staff has halved backup times and decreased backup-related work by at least 10 hours a week. Users can retrieve their own lost files, which enables them to immediately resume work and improve productivity. Backuprelated savings are expected to exceed U.S. $15,000 per year. Improved Data Protection MCS USA now has better, more full-featured backup for its business-critical SQL Server 2005 and Exchange Server 2003 data stores. When you back up Microsoft software using third-party products, you have to make sure that you re running the latest version of those backup applications and have your licensing contracts up-to-date. It s a real hassle, Hill says. Plus, Veritas was slow to roll out SQL Server and Exchange Server support. Now we get the latest backup support for the latest versions of Microsoft products. With Data Protection Manager 2007, we have a more dependable and flexible backup solution; it s a good feeling to have, Fedelini adds. When the tape library goes down, we have no backups, and we re two days behind. With Data Protection Manager, we ve eliminated that whole scenario. MSC USA uses an EMC CLARiiON CX3-80 storage system to provide disk storage and still maintains Veritas software to back up workloads not yet covered by System Center Data Protection Manager. The company plans to migrate additional data-center workloads and also branch-office backups to System Center Data Protection Manager in the future. Using snapshot settings in System Center Data Protection Manager, the IT staff at MSC USA can perform backups as frequently as they choose, with little extra work. We set snapshots to run throughout the day and also run backups at least twice a day. We no longer face data retrieval bottlenecks related to the tape library, Hill says. Although MSC USA doesn t face industry compliance requirements as a privately owned company, the IT staff has internal service-level agreements pertaining to backup retention, file-restore times, and other data protection metrics that it needs to meet. System Center Data Protection Manager helps with all these. Backups 50 Percent Faster Backups used to take all night to run on the company s six tape drives; a 300-GB
With a 10-hour weekly timesaving, we re able to spend more time managing servers and making sure the right servers are backed up. Mike Hill, Assistant IT Infrastructure Manager, Mediterranean Shipping Company USA workload could take six hours. With Data Protection Manager 2007, backups are 50 percent faster, Hill says. This is important, because backups would often interfere with other work the IT staff was doing. If we rebooted a server while a backup was running, we lost the backup. Backups are now done and out of the way sooner. Improved Staff Productivity The IT staff has captured 1 to 2 hours a day just in file-recovery time and up to 10 hours a week in overall backup-related savings. With a 10-hour weekly timesaving, we re able to spend more time managing servers and making sure the right servers are backed up, Hill says. Our server mix is constantly changing due to projects starting and stopping and new software coming in; we now have more time to manage the big picture. Also, the Veritas backup solution for Exchange Server did not do mailbox-level restores; if Fedelini s staff had to restore a single mailbox, it had to restore the entire Exchange Server store, which could take 6 hours. With Data Protection Manager, mailbox-level restores are very easy. Data Protection Manager is fantastic for us in cases like these because it s so much faster, Fedelini says. The tight integration of System Center Data Protection Manager and SQL Server 2005 results in more timesaving for the IT staff. Before, when a database was corrupted or had a problem, a database administrator would ask the IT staff to restore the database. This required locating the tape with the correct version of the needed database a multi-hour process. Today, database administrators can restore their own databases to the desired server location without any IT involvement. End-user productivity is higher, too, because now users can recover their own files. Working in Windows Explorer or familiar Microsoft Office programs, users can browse the most recent copies of their file and simply click a file to restore it. Users really like not having to go through the help desk, which is overwhelmed, or the IT staff, which is backlogged. We ve enabled this feature for all 1,200 end users, Fedelini says. MSC USA plans to implement the Microsoft 2007 Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 when it is available. The Data Protection Management Pack provides automated, centralized alerts and updates from Microsoft for its System Center Data Protection Manager servers. Getting alerts through Operations Manager will probably save us a couple of hours a week in locating alerts on third-party vendors Web sites and installing them manually, Hill says. The Management Pack monitors the state of database and service health, server computer performance, and other key indicators. For protected file servers, the Management Pack monitors the state of connectivity with Data Protection Manager, data recovery operations for protected volumes, and replicas and shadow copies that are stored on the System Center Data Protection Manager server. Backup Savings of $15,000 Annually Fedelini estimates that the use of System Center Data Protection Manager will save the company at least $15,000 annually. The weekly IT timesaving from using Data Protection Manager is worth approximately $10,000 a year, and we ll reduce our Veritas support costs by 50 percent another $5,000 annual savings, Fedelini says.
For More Information For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-ofhearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com For more information about Mediterranean Shipping Company USA products and services, call (212) 764-4800 or visit the Web site at: www.mscgva.ch Also, MSC USA eliminated 100 tapes when it started backing up 35 server computers with, a one-time savings of $3,000. As our data builds and we move more data stores to, our tape savings will increase, Hill adds. I am certainly content to save a few thousand dollars per month. However, what is of greater value to me, yet difficult to quantify, is the overall benefit to my IT staff as well as the added productivity to the organization as a whole. Ultimately, MSC USA plans to use System Center Data Protection Manager to back up its 26 branch sites, too. That move will generate additional savings by eliminating branch-office tape systems and relieve local branch staff of dealing with backup chores each day. Microsoft Server Product Portfolio For more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to: www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx Microsoft System Center Microsoft System Center is a family of leading IT management solutions that helps you proactively plan, deploy, manage, and optimize your IT environment. System Center solutions capture and aggregate knowledge about your infrastructure, policies, processes, and best practices so your IT staff can build manageable systems and automate operations in order to reduce costs, improve application availability, and enhance service delivery. For more information about the System Center family of solutions, go to: www.microsoft.com/systemcenter Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio Windows Server 2003 Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 Hardware Dell PowerEdge 2650 server computer EMC CLARiiON CX3-80 storage system Veritas NetBackup This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published November 2007