Handbag and accessory ensures continuous business operations in event of data loss, eliminating backup windows

Handbag and accessory ensures continuous business operations in event of data loss, eliminating backup windows

London-based luxury retailer Radley + Co has deployed FalconStor Continuous Data Protector (CDP) from FalconStor Software to provide both disaster recovery (DR) and backup services.

As a company with an international supply chain and retail outlets, Radley + Co produces a lot of data, in many different formats and across multiple sites. The company’s primary aim was to replicate data from its data centre in London to a remote warehouse location that also serves as its DR site.

Virtual technical solution

With Radley + Co’s London infrastructure almost entirely virtualised on VMware ESX Server, the objective was achieved by deploying a FalconStor DiskSafe agent on each virtualised server. The DiskSafe agent synchronises data back to a FalconStor CDP appliance, which in turn, replicates to the DR site over a leased line. Snapshots are taken every three hours, enabling roll-back, in three-hour intervals, to up to a week before any disaster occurred or was discovered.

However, the company realised that the same FalconStor solution could also meet its backup requirements. “At one time, we had a sizeable window available in which to do our backups,” said Francis Rodrigues, Radley + Co IT support manager.

“However, once the business expanded into the US, systems were put to use for far longer periods of time, reducing the backup window to the point where it was almost non-existent. But we realised we could use the snapshots generated by FalconStor CDP to solve the backup problem by employing FalconStor HyperTrac Backup Accelerator technology to archive data onto tape.

Enhancing backup capabilities

“FalconStor CDP with HyperTrac Backup Accelerator capability is a completely non-disruptive solution and the business benefit is clear: we have protected the business against failure caused by data loss, however that data loss might occur,” he added.

Previously, the company’s DR provisioning consisted primarily of backing up to tape, with a strategy of restoring from tape and restarting operations as well as possible. Scenario testing – the results of which inspired the FalconStor project – showed that recovery was time-consuming, required the involvement of expensive consultants, and would involve a loss of operations and data.