Sydney, Australia, 25 June 2015: Veeam Software, the innovative provider of solutions that delivers Availability for the Modern Data Center, today announced that Zoos South Australia (SA), a not-for-profit conservation charity whose core revenue stream is from admissions, has chosen Veeam to ensure availability across its data centre. Working with Veeam Silver ProPartner, Subnet, Zoos SA has been able to reduce the amount of time required for managing and monitoring backups of its 32 VMware vSphere virtual machines from three days to just a few seconds. Moreover, Zoos SA was able to improve file-level recovery from two hours to a few minutes, resulting in cost-savings of tens of thousands of dollars.
Zoos SA runs Australia’s second oldest zoo, Adelaide Zoo, a ‘pay-to-see’ attraction in South Australia and is 137 years old. It is the only zoo in the southern hemisphere to play home to the great panda. Also operated by Zoos SA, is the iconic Monarto Zoo, the largest open air zoo in the world, spanning a thousand hectares. The lion enclosure alone at Monarto is the size of Adelaide Zoo. On average, Zoos SA welcomes 500,000 visitors per year to both Zoos.
Adelaide Zoo and Monato Zoo are both open every day of the week and are truly the epitome of the ‘Always-On BusinessTM’, where uptime is crucial for of all the Zoo’s admissions and security camera systems for the animals, including animal support systems.
“Despite being a non-profit conservation charity, we are also running a business that operates daily, where park admission fees are our main source of revenue,” said Ashlen Naicker, ICT Manager for Zoos SA. “An hour of downtime for either zoo can result in loss of revenue.”
To prevent such a loss, Zoos SA decided to revolutionise its admission system and commenced a search for a new data availability solution as part its IT overhaul. “Our organisation was growing, but our legacy tool wasn’t growing with us,” continued Naicker. “The zoos rely on my team to get visitors through the doors and ensure they have an amazing experience. That means all systems have to be working flawlessly in the background, especially the admissions, Wi-Fi, and point-of-purchase – everything is virtualised. My team relies on high availability in our data centre.”
The previous backup-to-tape tool was slow, sluggish and becoming unreliable therefore, Naicker and his team required a faster and more reliable solution. Zoos SA reached out to Subnet, an SA-based managed services provider for advice.
“Subnet recommended Veeam because it worked so well for its other clients,” Naicker said. “Subnet was spot on. We were tired of things going wrong with the legacy tool. We were ready for a high-performance availability solution.”
Veeam Backup and Replication was able to provide Zoos SA with a solution that brought confidence and peace of mind while they deployed the new admission system.
“As a core revenue stream, we’re always keen to improve on our admission system, which includes online bookings and other services such as venue hire,” continued Naicker. “We couldn’t have entertained the thought of a new system without being absolutely positive it could provide quick and reliable availability. That’s the biggest difference between Veeam and the legacy tool – steadfast performance.”
Another differentiator between the legacy tool and Veeam Backup & Replication is backup speed.
“The difference in speed is like chalk and cheese,” Naicker said. “I’d go gray waiting for a backup to complete with the legacy tool. With Veeam, this is instant and often. “Each day, Veeam delivers an email report notifying me of real-time monitoring, reporting and capacity planning for our backup infrastructure. Daily notification is a luxury that I did not have previously,” added Naicker.
Veeam Backup & Replication also compresses and deduplicates backup data better than the legacy tool, enabling Zoos SA to keep backups on site one year before archiving them off site. Data centre storage could only hold 21 days of backups made with the legacy tool.
A third differentiator between Veeam Backup & Replication and the legacy tool is ease-of-use.
“Veeam is so simple to use that our junior engineers are comfortable handling VM and file-level recovery on their own,” Naicker said. “When the VM running Microsoft Exchange failed and I was out of the country, I talked them through VM recovery over the phone. There was no downtime and no data loss. The staff had no idea anything had happened. Veeam saved the day.”
“Businesses today, no matter their industry, are handling enormous amounts of data. This data is crucial to business operations, and downtime equals financial loss. No one, especially a non-profit organisation, can afford such risks,” commented Don Williams, Vice President, ANZ for Veeam. “I am proud that our solutions are able to support Zoos SA and allow them to run their operations seven days a week, all year round, without any worry.”
Resource
VeeamON 2015: The World’s Premier Data Centre Availability Event, will take place October 26–29, 2015 at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, NV. For the second consecutive year, Veeam will bring together industry-leading experts, Veeam customers and partners who will learn about enabling the Always-On Business. Pre-registration is now open.
About Veeam Software
Veeam recognizes the new challenges companies across the globe face in enabling the Always-On Business, a business that must operate 24/7/365. To address this, Veeam has pioneered a new market of Availability for the Modern Data Center by helping organizations meet recovery time and point objectives (RTPO) of less than 15 minutes for all applications and data, through a fundamentally new kind of solution that delivers high-speed recovery, data loss avoidance, verified protection, leveraged data and complete visibility. Veeam Availability Suite, which includes Veeam Backup & Replication, leverages virtualization, storage, and cloud technologies that enable the modern data center to help organizations save time, mitigate risks, and dramatically reduce capital and operational costs.
Founded in 2006, Veeam currently has 30,500 ProPartners and more than 145,500 customers worldwide. Veeam’s global headquarters are located in Baar, Switzerland, and the company has offices throughout the world. To learn more, visit http://www.veeam.com.