VERITAS Software partner, Unisys South Africa, has completed the initial installation of VERITAS Backup Exec 8.5 at Metropolitan Life in Cape Town. As a data-intensive operation, Metropolitan Life relies on information availability, such as offered by the stable and accessible VERITAS product line.
Backup Exec`s device and media management capabilities simplify tape device and library configuration as well as management, for maximum access to stored information. "The product capitalises on fast access times inherent in disk technology by providing the capability to back up to hard drives, storage area networks (SAN) and RAID systems, something that Metropolitan Life considered important," maintains Pam Rogers, account manager at Bytes Technology Networks, the VERITAS partner currently responsible for support of VERITAS products at Metropolitan.
"Prior to implementing Backup Exec, we used ArcServe for our backups. However, we decided to switch systems because ArcServe did not have the cluster awareness that Metropolitan required. Another feature that tipped the scale in VERITAS` favour was its ability to do brick level backup," says Morn`e Stevens, IT consultant at Metropolitan Life.
A three-week pilot project preceded the installation of Backup Exec. The pilot project was co-ordinated by Rogers and Stevens, together with the Metropolitan IT team. "The pilot project acted as a performance and functionality test of the Open File and Intelligent Disaster Recovery options, as well as the exchange agent and of course Backup Exec itself running on NT. We implemented the products once we were satisfied that it met our needs," says Stevens.
Backup Exec caters for the entire Metropolitan campus as well as remote sites. "In total more than 50 servers use VERITAS software for backups," adds Rogers.
Nick van Noordwyk, regional director, Middle East and Africa at VERITAS Software, says VERITAS Backup Exec`s Intelligent Image option reduces the time it took Metropolitan to back up and restore data. "In a clustered environment they considered it especially important that their backup solution supports full, differential or incremental backup methods and enables the restoration of individual files or the entire disk volume."
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