Evalueserve is a global professional services provider that offers research, analytics, and data management services across a range of industries and business functions. The company wanted to enhance the Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) for many of their critical client projects. The existing data recovery process was complex and time-consuming. Also, the company was not comfortable making a hefty investment on a global DR framework for their projects data.
‘We were struggling for a long time in meeting the Recovery Time Objective (RTO) for data recovery for many critical client projects. We also had challenges in figuring out an easy and low-cost model for a global DR framework,' says Sachin Jain, the CIO of Evalueserve.
The implementation
The company used a combination of primary storage (NAS) and secondary multi-tiered storage (StorSimple) both on-premise and Azure cloud to build a global DR framework for real-time data recovery with no impact on user experience and client SLAs.
They have two secondary storages (one in India and one in US) on which all of their global locations replicate the data. The snapshot of data from secondary storage is further going to the cloud. In the event of failure of primary or secondary storage, the data can still be accessed in real time with same access privileges as on primary storage. This can be done without using the traditional tape-based backup which is a time-consuming process and may not be a fool-proof solution. The total cost incurred for the development and implementation of this initiative is 18 lacs per annum, says Jain.
The impact
The solution was implemented by taking concurrence from business units based on the business impact assessment. 'We did not face too many issues during the planning and execution except for some technical challenges which we could solve with the help of partner/OEM, argues Jain.
The implementation led to a cost savings of $50k annually, says the CIO. Among the top benefits they gained include the innovative approach which is a first in the industry where they were able to create a low-cost multi-tier DR. Some of the other key results achieved include the following:
- Real-time recovery of data thus meeting RTOs for critical client projects
- No change in user experience or special tasks to be performed for data recovery
- Multi-layered global DR using an on-premise and cloud approach with a low-cost model
- Reduced manageability of IT team and increased efficiency by enabling automated layers of recovery through multiple layers
- Reduced dependencies on traditional tape-based backup
- Increased data recovery capability which is almost real time covering all possible failure scenarios at facility, city and country level
The productivity of IT team and business users is improved by 5-6%. This has reduced RTO/RPO thus increasing faster response to client or meeting SLAs. Plus, this also led to cost reduction and efficiency gain for all business units and corporate groups globally.
What it took to achieve the impact
'For a long time, we were sitting on a proposal with high budget and complex design to build a real-time recovery of data. The DR solution proposed by many vendors was time consuming and expensive. When we looked at the components of currently implemented solution we could figure out an option which can possibly address our requirement with an easy setup and at a fraction of the cost from earlier proposals,' say Sachin. They guided their team to draw an architecture which was not implemented earlier. The technology/service partner (which is Microsoft) was surprised at the innovation and they extended full support. It was a unique implementation and sort of first of its kind in this space, claims Sachin. The solution is live which has helped us save thousands of dollars every month which we could have spent otherwise, adds Sachin.
Future plans
Given the sizable growth in data every year which leads to complicated backup and recovery processes in addition to increased backup and recovery window, the solution has helped Evalueserve to simplify the setup and related processes where they could also cut down on the tape based backup.
The scope of the project is global. The recovery using the solution is real-time (with meagre manual intervention). The plan is to automate the entire process which can help us recover business critical data instantly from any device location. 'This will also help further cut down the RPO/RTO we commit to our clients', says Sachin.
