Praetorian's business has grown significantly in recent years due to a core expansion strategy, the company said. The company's former patchwork of servers and storage in its branch and agent offices in all 50 states were beginning to constrain its strategic growth objectives, Praetorian of New York said. The company realized that it needed a consolidated and centralized infrastructure that would deliver better business continuity, compliance with state regulations governing data protection, and cost savings, the company added. These needs were met by implementing a solution from EMC and VMware that provided comprehensive data protection and recovery management, Praetorian added.
Praetorian currently uses the VMware Infrastructure to allow multiple instances of Microsoft Corp’s Windows 2003 operating system in VMware virtual machines to run on a single physical server, EMC of Hopkinton, Massachusetts said. These instances, which run Citrix, Microsoft Exchange, underwriting and claims, and other applications, are stored on an EMC CLARiiON SAN (storage area network), EMC added. For protection, EMC RepliStor software provides continuous replication of the virtual machines from Praetorian's production data center in New York City to a remote site 30 miles away, EMC added.
Praetorian has improved the availability of its critical applications, the company said. When the company was earlier using tape backup as its primary data protection solution, the company endured days or even weeks to re-build its physical servers and recover its applications, Praetorian said. With EMC RepliStor capturing changes on a continuous basis, the company can fire up its VMware virtual machines at the remote site for full recovery of its most critical business applications within 24 hours, and with no more than 15 minutes of data loss exposure, Praetorian added. RepliStor works seamlessly with VMware Infrastructure to provide an integrated, cost-effective, and airtight solution for recovery management, Praetorian added.
Praetorian also uses EMC NetWorker software to back up its virtual machine images and data files residing on CLARiiON storage to tape, as further protection, EMC said. It also uses NetWorker to back up files from EMC Celerra network-attached storage (NAS) to tape, with Celerra Replicator software replicating the Celerra files to the remote site, EMC added.
EMC NetWorker provides Praetorian with central, automated backup of all its applications, quickly and easily, Praetorian said. Speed is important as the company's data is growing, Praetorian added. The NetWorker allows the company to keep its backup windows under control, so that it does not cut into the production day, Praetorian added.
Praetorian has also been able to improve disaster recovery efficiency and eliminate hardware dependencies through virtualization with VMware Infrastructure, EMC said. By running multiple guest operating systems on a single Dell server with VMware Infrastructure, Praetorian has consolidated 52 physical servers in its legacy infrastructure to just nine servers today running approximately 90 virtual machines, EMC added.
Praetorian's server consolidation with VMware Infrastructure has contributed to a more cost-effective business continuity environment, the company said. For one, a minimal number of physical servers are required to be on standby at the remote site, and secondly, a smaller overall server infrastructure has also made the environment more reliable and easier to manage and protect, Praetorian added.
The savings from Praetorian server consolidation have benefited not only the company's business continuity environment, but the entire IT infrastructure, Praetorian said. In addition to reducing the number of servers, the company also gets more out of each server by increasing its utilization of each physical server from about 8-10 percent to 80 percent, the company said. This is how the company has been able to reduce its TCO (total cost of ownership) by almost 50 percent, it added. Praetorian also calculated an ROI of nearly 600 percent, which it achieved in just four months, the company added. Savings of this nature allows the company to focus its IT staff on recovery management and other strategic initiatives that help build the business, Praetorian added.
