Financial Institution

As the manager of one of the nation’s largest public pension funds, this financial institution serves more than 1 million members. When it had to refresh its aging x86 and mainframe backup environments, the organization began exploring independent solutions from multiple vendors. It quickly discovered that by backing up both its distributed x86 systems and mainframe systems with a single solution using NetApp E-Series storage, it could reduce costs, complexity, and management overhead.

The pension fund was looking for a less expensive backup solution for its x86 systems, which run its back-office file serving, email, and virtual desktops. As the x86 backup environment aged, it had become too expensive to manage and support. The organization selected Commvault on NetApp E-Series systems to back up its x86 database environments, virtual environments, and physical systems.

Not long after that, the organization also needed to refresh the backup solution for its mainframe systems, which run its financial services apps. The organization chose Luminex to back up its mainframe z/OS and z/ VM data from applications such as DB2, WebSphere, and CICS, as well as zLinux system images.

Luminex required the LUN size to be 60TB with enough disks to balance out the workload. The device also needed the capacity to backup 360TB of mainframe data and the ability to support high availability (HA) failover.

DOUBLE DUTY

Partnering with NetApp, the organization soon learned that with NetApp E-Series systems, it could support both backup solutions using the same storage array. Instead of learning and managing two independent solutions, the company could simplify management with a single storage operating system and take advantage of economies of scale to reduce its costs.

The organization deployed 1.4PB of NetApp E-Series storage to back up 300TB of x86 data and 360TB of mainframe data across two sites. With E-Series’ high-density, high-capacity drives, the organization was able to reduce its data center footprint, including space, power, and cooling.

PROTECTING CRITICAL MAINFRAME DATA

As a public pension fund, the organization must protect its critical mainframe backup data. Data loss due to hardware failure, regional disasters, or human error could be catastrophic. Compared with the organization’s previous backup solutions, E-Series enables faster rebuild times if a drive fails, reducing the risk of data loss during a drive rebuild. With the organization’s previous virtual tape library, for example, it could take a full day to rebuild a single terabyte of data. NetApp E-Series can rebuild a failed drive in just minutes.