Eaton Rapids Switches to SEP sesam over Syncsort Backup

The Situation

An unreliable backup system was putting the IT resources and critical data at Eaton Rapids Public Schools at risk. The District had attempted over the course of 16 months to stabilize its backup of Novell Open Enterprise Server Clusters, SUSE Linux Enterprise Servers running XEN with multiple guest servers and Microsoft Windows Servers connected to a Storage-Area-Network (SAN) without sustained success.

Overview

Located in mid-central Michigan, Eaton Rapids Public Schools has 2,800 students and 250 staff. The district had recently installed multiple Novell OES Clusters connected to a SAN. The District was initially using Symantec´s Backup Exec but moved to Syncsort´s Backup Express in order to backup the Linux clusters.

Challenge

The District needed to improve performance, add effective migration tools, upgrade SAN interfaces and improve fail-over capability. To accomplish all of this the District upgraded their Novell Open Enterprise Server Release 1 (OES1) software to OES2. Once the upgrade was completed, the District received the benefits it was expecting but the ability to backup their OES2 environment with Syncsort Backup Express was a complete failure. They couldn’t backup OES2 clusters.

SEP sesam Solution

The District worked diligently with Syncsort engineers to continue to use Backup Express but after 6 weeks without a backup the situation was dire, there was no progress. Something had to be done. On the recommendation of a trusted advisor, Mike Grady, President of Gracon Services, Inc. of Okemos, Mi, they switched to SEP´s sesam backup software.

“After a few startup issues and a brief learning curve, we were able to backup our OES2 cluster servers consistently and reliably. This corrected the problem we had with Syncsort Backup (BEX) Express.” according to Lyne Roberts, the previous IT Director.

Results

Eaton Rapids Public Schools switched their backup solution from Syncsort Backup Express to SEP sesam software to save time and money. The District is now able to backup their entire enterprise OES2 with NSS volumes, Windows 2003 Servers with its NTFS file system and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with ext3 and REISER file systems.

“After the installation of SEP sesam Eaton Rapids finally had reliable backups for their entire environment for the first time in weeks. Something prior vendors just couldn’t do,” stated Mr. Grady, Gracon Services, Inc. a Platinum Reseller for SEP.

“After training by Gracon personnel, our staff has been able to completely manage all of the District’s backup and restore functions with confidence”, said Linda Beachnau, current IT Director at the Eaton Rapids.

“We calculated that the District will save over 50% of its initial investment in Backup Express by moving to SEP sesam backup software. The acquisition cost is much lower than BEX and the ongoing maintenance cost is even less,” according to Mr. Grady. “Added to the simplicity and ease of use of SEP sesam, the District will continue to benefit from the new backup software platform for years to come. Fewer administrative resources are required and several District staff have been trained to provide oversight for the backup processes,” stated Grady.