CASESTUDY
33
PRESTIGE IRISH DEPARTMENT
STORE ADDS BESPOKE BACKUP
Founded in 1849, and now part of the Wittington Investment Group,
Brown Thomas is one of Ireland’s premier lifestyle and fashion stores, with
branches in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Blanchardstown and Dundrum.
G
rowing amounts of data meant that the retailer has, therefore, been able to add a second,
retailer’s server backups were increasingly previously unattainable, level of robustness – moving
taking much longer – this was particularly it away from reactive disaster recovery to a more
worrying as the retailer’s existing solutions required proactive business continuity solution.
Acronis has
servers to be taken of� ine in order to create a full This means that, if a server fails today at a Brown
brought peace
backup. Thomas store, the IT team can upload the most up-to-
of mind, and an
Joe Rylands, group IT director at Brown Thomas date Acronis disk image on to a standby server at the
knew that soon it would be almost impossible for the retailer’s data centre – and all the related applications
increased level
IT team to complete its daily server backups outside for that store can be run remotely – reducing server
of con� dence
the retailer’s working hours. However, the problem was downtime, as well as the potential risk of lost business.
in the way we
compounded because in the event of server failure it Rylands has also been able to work closely with the
could take around 11 hours to bring a new machine vendor’s development team to create a bespoke disk
backup and
online. This meant it was almost certain that one, if not imaging solution for Brown Thomas’ PoS machines. “We
recover our
two, days of normal operations could be lost. predict that once the solution is in place, we should be
data...you just
Rylands noted that his team faced a similar set of able to rebuild a PoS unit within � ve minutes. That’s a
issues at a PC and laptop level: “And to make things massive improvement as it currently takes us anything
can’t put a price
worse, we weren’t at all con� dent that our existing from 90 minutes to two hours.”
on that.
solutions could provide us with suf� ciently reliable data Brown Thomas’ IT team is now planning to install
recovery capabilities, even after we’d invested the time Acronis Recovery for Microsoft Exchange solution
reinstalling the software and con� guring the settings.” to protect the retailer’s email servers. Rylands also
After carrying out a full evaluation of the data noted that there are other functions that he’s yet to
backup and recovery market, Rylands decided that try: “There’s also an option on the Acronis True Image
Acronis’ disk imaging technology would be the best Workstation solution to create an Acronis Secure
� t for his need, because Acronis could meet his Zone partition, from which machines can be rebooted
requirement for a single vendor disaster recovery without the need of a system disk,” he said.
solution for servers, workstations and laptops. In “Acronis has brought peace of mind to us all, and
addition, Acronis’ software can also save all installed an increased level of con� dence in the way we backup
programmes and preferences, together with each and recover our data. At the end of the day, you just
machine’s uniquely con� gured system settings. can’t put a price on that,” Rylands concluded.
“Although important in workstation and laptop
environments, this function was absolutely critical for
our servers as the majority of time spent bringing
them back online is dedicated to recon� guration and
software reinstallation,” explained Rylands.
Brown Thomas took on Acronis True Image Echo
Server software licences to backup and protect the
‘tier-one’ servers, which controlled everything from
point-of-sale (PoS) systems through to merchandising
and human resources (HR) applications. It also
purchased Acronis True Image Echo Workstation
licences for key PCs and laptops.
Acronis’ software provides Brown Thomas with a
greater degree of centralised control. Backup policies
can be set remotely and the images transferred
quickly and inexpensively to the retailer’s data centre
via a secure private network, where they can either
be downloaded or stored on dedicated servers. The
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2009 RETAIL TECHNOLOGY
033 Case Study.indd 33 15/9/09 1:34:04 pm
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