Exploiting Modern Technology

Managing this wide spectrum of suppliers, sales channels, loyalty schemes, national and international contacts, means that the company´s IT is confronted with new challenges on an almost daily basis. Frankonia installed a mainframe platform as early as the late 60s and SAP R/2 was running on a COMPAREX mainframe by the mid 80s. However, neither mainframe nor R/2 are to be found at Frankonia today. New challenges and requirements led to their being replaced by a Windows platform and an Informix based SAP R/3 Retail several years ago. Microsoft Exchange was selected as the company´s communication tool.

Cutting Costs and Increasing Productivity

The introduction of an Open Systems environment and a SAN (Storage Area Network) topology have led to both an increase in the number of devices to be managed as well as in the volumes of data and data growth - approximately 50% per year. Frankonia expected to be able to realise both reductions in cost and increases in operational efficiency with the implementation of centralised data management. A major aim was to reduce the times required for Backup/Restore in order to improve general productivity via more online application up-time. For this reason it was decided to implement a "LANfree" Backup/Restore solution.

Proof-of-Concept

Daniel Klaus, SAP R/3 System Administrator with Frankonia Jagd comments "The consultancy provided by COMPAREX was first-class. With our SAP R/3 running on Informix we needed to find a solution to fit our particular configuration. A number of vendors gave us their views and recommendations but COMPAREX convinced us that the best solution for our needs would be Legato's NetWorker. We decided on a "Proof-of-Concept" methodology by which the configurations were tested both in our own data centre and in the COMPAREX lab successfully so that we had a good feeling of confidence before going ahead with the actual implementation."

Phased Migration

"COMPAREX recommended a step-by-step blueprint, a modular approach which had obviously been thought through well, to install the new components and also included a series of project test phases. The method was convincing, being both comprehensive and tailored to meet our exact requirements," says Fr. Liselotte Haas, responsible for Information Technology at Frankonia. The COMPAREX Global Services team then set to work and supported Frankonia further by providing the company with a cartridge library system based on DLT technology for centralised backups on a temporary loan basis. In the next phases the relevant versions of NetWorker software releases were installed and tested and the last phase consisted of implementing and enabling LANfree backup together with Dynamic Drive Sharing.

Competent and Expert

Not only had the proposed solution been well thought through, it had, in fact, already been tested in COMPAREX' own laboratory - "4C2U" (COMPAREX Core Competence Centre). All the servers, software, storage and operating systems supplied by COMPAREX partners as well as other popular systems are available in the lab. A visit to the lab convinced Frankonia of the benefits to be achieved by migrating to LTO-technology and of the expertise and skills of COMPAREX Global Services staff. COMPAREX had recommended installing LTO drives as a means of controlling data growth as the system is characterised by large cartridge capacities of 100 GB native and fast data transfer rates of 15 MB/s. The security of the data was also enhanced by the installation of the C584 LTO library in a physically separate fire-proof vault.

Exhaustive testing

After all of the components had been successfully installed a series of acceptance tests were carried out to guarantee a stable and high performance backup environment. Both backup and restore were put to the test bearing in mind that Frankonia backs up all of its data on a daily basis. Frankonia today has approx. 0.5 TB of production data, and the overall volume of data being backed up is 1.4 TB and an annual data growth rate of approx. 150 GB. Daniel Klaus summarises, "We are extremely pleased with the results. Our initial aim was to be able to have applications up and running again within five hours following a worst cast scenario. Thanks to the newly implemented solution we can back up our production data in the space of less than 2.5 hours and restore in under four hours. Legato NetWorker´s centralised scheduling facility ensures that backups are executed every night as planned and, indeed, in less than half the time required by our previous backup window!"

Final Result: Top Grades

L. Haas concludes, "Our requirements as far as performance and availability are concerned were fulfilled 100%. The tests carried out during the final phase and subsequent data centre operations are all proof of the inherent strengths of the system's design. COMPAREX delivered all the functionality and the performance we were promised which itself is a proof of the performance of the COMPAREX Global Services systems engineers themselves. Our other goal - to raise productivity levels within the company has also been achieved. Our LAN is no longer degraded or disrupted by large volumes of data traffic during backups, data is now transferred LANfree directly across the SAN. Our bonus is simply that our end users now benefit from longer system and application up-times."

Frankonia today has approx. 0.5 TB of production data, and the overall volume of data being backed up is 1.4 TB and an annual data growth rate of approx. 150 GB.