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Jean-Claude Jastreb – Synerway International Pre Sales Director: Synerway’s restoration Appliances for multi-site infrastructures
April 2011 by Marc Jacob
With its range of Appliances, Synerway has a solution for multi-site organisations looking to protect from 50 GB to 15 TB of data. Synerway has chosen a distributed systems architecture for its local physical or virtual Synerway Appliances in order to remove bandwidth from the data protection equation.
For Jean-Claude Jastreb – Synerway International Pre-Sales Director, it’s not about selling backup solutions but restoration Appliances!
GS MAG : What kind of customer are you attracting with your multi-site solution?
Jean-Claude Jastreb : Synerway has solutions for companies with 50 GB to 15 TB of data to protect. These companies all want to be able to restore their data both rapidly and in a controlled manner.
We are targeting organisations with numerous remote sites without local IT skills but with simple and rapid data restoration requirements.
Distributed data protection using a Synerway Appliance
GS MAG : What makes your solution stand out from the competition?
Jean-Claude Jastreb : Deduplication? Compression at source? CDP? Block Mode? Most competitors structure their solutions around centralised data backup environments without consideration for restoration constraints.
We have chosen a distributed architecture for our local physical or virtual Synerway Appliances to remove bandwidth from the data protection equation.
Because restoring 100 GB over a 2 Mb or 4 Mb link from a central site would take hours and jeopardise the company. Our solutions guarantee rapid restoration from the local Appliance. Only critical data are consolidated on a central site or a storage bay.
Data restoration can be handled on a local level or via a central administration or supervision site.
As a recent example, our partner Proxival chose to equip their clients with a data protection solution managed from a central location. They could have chosen to simply install backup software and transfer data in block mode to their data center (a solution also proposed by Synerway).
However, to guarantee rapid restorations and simplify operations and maintenance, Proxival chose to install a Synerway Appliance: all components are completely integrated (no in-house integration required). There is only a single point of contact in the event of a problem, plus a water-tight separation between the backup system and the protected systems themselves.
To not weigh down existing on-site infrastructure with additional hardware, the choice of a virtual Appliance seemed natural: with the guarantee of the same level of service as a physical Appliance.
Daily administrative tasks divided by 5 to 10
GS MAG : What are the major advantages of your solution for the IS?
Jean-Claude Jastreb : The optimisation of daily backup and administration tasks. Our clients estimate a division of these tasks by a factor of between 5 and 10. Local data restoration directly from the Appliance allows companies to recover their own data, systems and applications or perform a very rapid DRP which completely outstrips the performance of centralised backup architectures.
One of our clients for example chose to equip each of its stores with a Synerway Appliance: it is critical for this client that each sales outlet is entirely autonomous and able to restart their infrastructure in disaster recovery mode and restore all servers in the event of a major incident.
We deliver factory-mastered Appliances
GS MAG : What is your deployment advice?
Jean-Claude Jastreb : This is another Synerway strong point. Our company’s success is based primarily on multi-site deployments from a few Appliances to several thousands. This momentum is continuing in 2011.
We also propose factory-mastered Appliances after prior consultation with the client regarding restorations, security and backup policy. This enables us to create models within the system.
The Appliance can then be sent to its deployment site with no technical intervention required. The administration site then takes over using the centralisation tools we provide. The greater the number of sites, the greater the gain in time and money saved.
If the number of remote sites does not warrant a factory master, it is also possible to prepare each Appliance before deployment.
Managed Services for remote Appliance operational supervision and administration
GS MAG : What types of services do you propose to accompany these deployments?
Jean-Claude Jastreb : Under the name of Managed Services, Synerway offers a range of remote supervision, administration and operational services for its Appliances.
This range of services includes Appliance supervision, backup verifications, proactive log handling in the event of an incident and finally, a daily personalised Email report.
In the event of an incident, our dedicated team provides an action plan which may include Appliance “tele-administration”, installing updates and performing maintenance.
A regular configuration audit is performed to optimise backup strategies.
GS MAG : What is your message to IT Managers?
Jean-Claude Jastreb : That we do not sell backup solutions – we sell restoration Appliances! Each Appliance should be seen as a logical conclusion to a list of published requirements and processes.
Our main stated aim is to guarantee data restorations, reduce time spent on administrative tasks and to provide the best possible TCO.
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