Business Challenges: Replace Symantec Back Up Exec to ensure protection from natural disasters

On April 24, 2011, devastating thunderstorms, severe winds and tornadoes slammed the South, claiming lives and flattening buildings. The residents of Tuscaloosa, Ala. sustained some of the worst damage during a mile-wide tornado. Homes and businesses were left in ruins. Fifty miles away, in Morris, Ala., Reno Refractories took note. “Many businesses in the Tuscaloosa area were not able to recover after the tornado damage because their business identity was completely obliterated during this natural disaster,” said Wayne Bailey,
network administrator, Reno Refractories. “One minute all was fine, and the next minute nothing was there.”

Like most companies, Reno had already purchased several types of disaster recovery solutions to rebuild physical structures and replace equipment in case of disaster. Symantec Backup Exec was used as its primary backup solution; otherwise, its disaster recovery plan involved executing a cumbersome disk-to-disk-to-tape backup, then carrying the tapes offsite to a local bank safety deposit box. But these were not considered adequate enough to protect Reno’s data, applications and servers. “If we were hit with another devastating tornado, there would be no way to determine who owes us money and to whom we owe money. Data about our inventory, customers and vendors would be wiped out,” Bailey continued. He estimates that in the face of a natural disaster, system downtime could last as long as two to three months, as Reno would have to secure replacement equipment along with a data center to co-locate the equipment until the company could repair or rebuild. And it would easily cost anywhere from $3 million to $6 million dollars, depending on the time of year. “These were real problems for which we had no solution,” Bailey said.