Riemer & Braunstein Benefits from Storage Virtualization

Law firms are often misinterpreted to be stodgy places, reluctant to move into the 21st century with new and emerging technology. Nevertheless, they rely heavily upon computers to complete daily tasks. Documents such as contracts, wills and other files are all confidential and extremely valuable; the data must be protected yet readily available at all times.

Backup Tapes Can Be Unreliable

Traditionally, firms have used tape backup solutions, which provide a relatively reliable and affordable data protection and backup method, especially for long-term protection and archiving. However, when data volumes increase and dependence on data availability and fast recovery are paramount, the limitations of tape media become severe. Data recovery from tape is time-consuming and imprecise. Recovery times can exceed 24 hours, and restoring an application to full operation can take even longer. When tapes are stored offsite, it can take several days to retrieve the tapes and restore data.

The revenue and productivity lost during that period can be devastating. Most tape implementations use agents on application host servers to back up data from servers, consuming application host processing time. In some cases, server backup can impact the server itself enough to affect application performance. Furthermore, the explosive growth of data has expanded server backup requirements to the point where completing backups within the time available has become nearly impossible.

At Riemer & Braunstein, a 200-person law firm with offices in Boston, Burlington, MA, Chicago and New York, we previously relied on nightly, tape-based backup and weekly delivery of tapes to an offsite storage facility, decreasing operational efficiencies and increasing overhead costs. With core practices in banking and finance, real estate, litigation, bankruptcy, corporate law and trusts and estates, the firm demanded secure, efficient data protection solutions. Our IT department has long taken pride in the use of leading technology to maintain a competitive advantage in the industry. However, tape backup and protection solutions were not working.

The firm's headquarters are in downtown Boston, and located in a 30-plus-year-old building that experiences occasional electrical and mechanical problems that impact the accessibility of information to the firm's other regional locations. As with many companies after the events of 9/11, we felt compelled to re-evaluate our business continuity and data protection plan. The goals of our new business continuity and disaster recovery plan were to minimize effects of local outages, maintain 24/7 operations in the event of a disaster and gain complete, real-time access to the data at all four nationwide offices.

Storage Virtualization

In researching how to achieve these goals, the IT team looked at the technologies of virtualization. The digital revolution has led to a proliferation of data, resulting in separate islands of storage in the data center, each requiring independent management and protection policies that complicates storage administration. This complexity results in resources that are either under- or over-utilized, which is both a waste of power and money. Storage virtualization allows us to consolidate storage resources into one virtual pool for simple and centralized management with flexibility, reducing primary storage capacity requirements and cutting storage capital investment. Additionally, through virtualization we gained the ability to leverage low-cost hardware with data services while migrating data between tiers, thus minimizing cost. Virtualization increases day-to-day operational efficiency, allowing us to reduce overhead cost while enabling quick recovery. It also allows for rapid storage growth and reconfiguration, without the downtime that expansion usually entails.

Volumes of storage may be allocated to application servers on the fly without interrupting operation. In order to truly assure business continuity, an advanced virtualization solution should make it possible to safeguard against all possible single points of failure on storage devices, server hardware, networking hardware and even complete site failure due to disaster. In an age in which law firms can't operate without access to their data, disaster protection and less downtime translate into higher returns and increased operational efficiency. To guard against failure of storage systems, we looked for a solution that enables mirroring of virtual drives ' not just within cabinets, but also across cabinets, even if they are made by different vendors ' and across any distance. To defend against server hardware failure, we wanted a solution that supports high-availability configurations, enabling full redundancy throughout the entire data path so that there is no single point of failure. To protect against site failure from a variety of disasters, the solution needed to support remote replication of virtual drives to keep an extra set of data offsite.

Costs Down

While virtualization allows us to hedge against uncertainties such as natural disasters, the benefits extend to daily operations by minimizing operational costs. The state of the economy has forced law firms across the country to consider new approaches to data protection processes and the overall management of IT operations. For most firms, the allocated budget for data protection and its distribution and the ratio between capital expenditure and operating expenditure is almost four to one: We spend four times more on maintaining data protection operations than on acquiring hardware and software for this purpose. Although it is still important, of course, to reduce capital expenditure, the area that can actually dramatically affect IT budget is operating expenditure. The best way to reduce capital expenditure is consolidation. Data protection consolidation delivers new ways of approaching data recovery. It is not backup on one side and disaster recovery (DR) on the other anymore. It is not which application needs to be recovered first or which one goes second.

We use 28 servers at Riemer & Braunstein at our Boston location alone, support 185 users on Microsoft Office 2003, and run key applications for document management, Microsoft Exchange and time and billing. We do this with only two dedicated IT staff members, responsible for a sizable user base and more than two terabytes of data, making the protection and dependability of data essential. After evaluating several other solutions, we chose storage virtualization solution FalconStor' Network Storage Server (NSS) ' based on its price, reliability and scalability.

By implementing the virtual solution with off-site replication, we gained a holistic approach to its data protection. Data is replicated throughout the day to the disaster recovery site in Chicago, which is a block away from the local office. Our IT department has also been able to consolidate servers and bring data availability back to real time for restores.

The new virtualized data storage and protection solution was put to the test last summer when we were informed by our landlord that our Boston office building would be shut down for three days. Employees were able to work remotely, connecting seamlessly to the Chicago data center. From a client and employee point of view, we remained completely open and operational.

We continue to look forward as the team understands the need to diversify risk and have a data center in another part of the country in the event that there are local issues in Chicago. As our team deploys additional applications, the new data-protection paradigm becomes more important in backing up data.

Conclusion

While law firms have traditionally been reluctant to introduce new technology, we understand the importance of such solutions in maintaining our position in the market. Riemer & Braunstein has benefited from our implementation of virtual server and data storage and protection solutions. In addition to being able to consolidate our servers and access stored data in real time, we have faced localized power outages and other challenges without disrupting workflow.

Even though IT leaders may be dubious of the possibilities of major disasters such as earthquakes or hurricanes, disaster recovery solutions provide protection from reoccurring events like power outages, blizzards or rainstorms, all of which could potentially impact business operations. Whether an unpredictable, devastating disaster, or a small, unanticipated interruption due to maintenance or a storm, Riemer & Braunstein is assured that its data is protected and its client relations remains running at all times.

Law firms are often misinterpreted to be stodgy places, reluctant to move into the 21st century with new and emerging technology. Nevertheless, they rely heavily upon computers to complete daily tasks. Documents such as contracts, wills and other files are all confidential and extremely valuable; the data must be protected yet readily available at all times.

Backup Tapes Can Be Unreliable

Traditionally, firms have used tape backup solutions, which provide a relatively reliable and affordable data protection and backup method, especially for long-term protection and archiving. However, when data volumes increase and dependence on data availability and fast recovery are paramount, the limitations of tape media become severe. Data recovery from tape is time-consuming and imprecise. Recovery times can exceed 24 hours, and restoring an application to full operation can take even longer. When tapes are stored offsite, it can take several days to retrieve the tapes and restore data.

The revenue and productivity lost during that period can be devastating. Most tape implementations use agents on application host servers to back up data from servers, consuming application host processing time. In some cases, server backup can impact the server itself enough to affect application performance. Furthermore, the explosive growth of data has expanded server backup requirements to the point where completing backups within the time available has become nearly impossible.

At Riemer & Braunstein, a 200-person law firm with offices in Boston, Burlington, MA, Chicago and New York, we previously relied on nightly, tape-based backup and weekly delivery of tapes to an offsite storage facility, decreasing operational efficiencies and increasing overhead costs. With core practices in banking and finance, real estate, litigation, bankruptcy, corporate law and trusts and estates, the firm demanded secure, efficient data protection solutions. Our IT department has long taken pride in the use of leading technology to maintain a competitive advantage in the industry. However, tape backup and protection solutions were not working.

The firm's headquarters are in downtown Boston, and located in a 30-plus-year-old building that experiences occasional electrical and mechanical problems that impact the accessibility of information to the firm's other regional locations. As with many companies after the events of 9/11, we felt compelled to re-evaluate our business continuity and data protection plan. The goals of our new business continuity and disaster recovery plan were to minimize effects of local outages, maintain 24/7 operations in the event of a disaster and gain complete, real-time access to the data at all four nationwide offices.

Storage Virtualization

In researching how to achieve these goals, the IT team looked at the technologies of virtualization. The digital revolution has led to a proliferation of data, resulting in separate islands of storage in the data center, each requiring independent management and protection policies that complicates storage administration. This complexity results in resources that are either under- or over-utilized, which is both a waste of power and money. Storage virtualization allows us to consolidate storage resources into one virtual pool for simple and centralized management with flexibility, reducing primary storage capacity requirements and cutting storage capital investment. Additionally, through virtualization we gained the ability to leverage low-cost hardware with data services while migrating data between tiers, thus minimizing cost. Virtualization increases day-to-day operational efficiency, allowing us to reduce overhead cost while enabling quick recovery. It also allows for rapid storage growth and reconfiguration, without the downtime that expansion usually entails.

Volumes of storage may be allocated to application servers on the fly without interrupting operation. In order to truly assure business continuity, an advanced virtualization solution should make it possible to safeguard against all possible single points of failure on storage devices, server hardware, networking hardware and even complete site failure due to disaster. In an age in which law firms can't operate without access to their data, disaster protection and less downtime translate into higher returns and increased operational efficiency. To guard against failure of storage systems, we looked for a solution that enables mirroring of virtual drives ' not just within cabinets, but also across cabinets, even if they are made by different vendors ' and across any distance. To defend against server hardware failure, we wanted a solution that supports high-availability configurations, enabling full redundancy throughout the entire data path so that there is no single point of failure. To protect against site failure from a variety of disasters, the solution needed to support remote replication of virtual drives to keep an extra set of data offsite.

Costs Down

While virtualization allows us to hedge against uncertainties such as natural disasters, the benefits extend to daily operations by minimizing operational costs. The state of the economy has forced law firms across the country to consider new approaches to data protection processes and the overall management of IT operations. For most firms, the allocated budget for data protection and its distribution and the ratio between capital expenditure and operating expenditure is almost four to one: We spend four times more on maintaining data protection operations than on acquiring hardware and software for this purpose. Although it is still important, of course, to reduce capital expenditure, the area that can actually dramatically affect IT budget is operating expenditure. The best way to reduce capital expenditure is consolidation. Data protection consolidation delivers new ways of approaching data recovery. It is not backup on one side and disaster recovery (DR) on the other anymore. It is not which application needs to be recovered first or which one goes second.

We use 28 servers at Riemer & Braunstein at our Boston location alone, support 185 users on Microsoft Office 2003, and run key applications for document management, Microsoft Exchange and time and billing. We do this with only two dedicated IT staff members, responsible for a sizable user base and more than two terabytes of data, making the protection and dependability of data essential. After evaluating several other solutions, we chose storage virtualization solution FalconStor' Network Storage Server (NSS) ' based on its price, reliability and scalability.

By implementing the virtual solution with off-site replication, we gained a holistic approach to its data protection. Data is replicated throughout the day to the disaster recovery site in Chicago, which is a block away from the local office. Our IT department has also been able to consolidate servers and bring data availability back to real time for restores.

The new virtualized data storage and protection solution was put to the test last summer when we were informed by our landlord that our Boston office building would be shut down for three days. Employees were able to work remotely, connecting seamlessly to the Chicago data center. From a client and employee point of view, we remained completely open and operational.

We continue to look forward as the team understands the need to diversify risk and have a data center in another part of the country in the event that there are local issues in Chicago. As our team deploys additional applications, the new data-protection paradigm becomes more important in backing up data.

Conclusion

While law firms have traditionally been reluctant to introduce new technology, we understand the importance of such solutions in maintaining our position in the market. Riemer & Braunstein has benefited from our implementation of virtual server and data storage and protection solutions. In addition to being able to consolidate our servers and access stored data in real time, we have faced localized power outages and other challenges without disrupting workflow.

Even though IT leaders may be dubious of the possibilities of major disasters such as earthquakes or hurricanes, disaster recovery solutions provide protection from reoccurring events like power outages, blizzards or rainstorms, all of which could potentially impact business operations. Whether an unpredictable, devastating disaster, or a small, unanticipated interruption due to maintenance or a storm, Riemer & Braunstein is assured that its data is protected and its client relations remains running at all times.