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Found in: Case Studies

In 2000, a flood devastated the Sycamore Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, one of several outlying facilities operated by the Metropolitan Sewer District of Greater Cincinnati (MSD). Flood waters inundated the first floor, permanently destroying data stored on the plant's server.

"The building was still there, but it was uninhabitable," said Marty Hubbard, computer systems analyst for MSD. "Back then, we didn't have a backup unit out there. We learned a lesson, and we figured we've got to do something."

With 217,000 commercial, industrial and residential connections depending on MSD's services, it's crucial that the organization's IT systems continue to function under adverse conditions. After the Sycamore Creek flood, MSD implemented backup capabilities, but the solution the agency first settled on could take hours, if not days, to recover after a disaster. Recently MSD implemented a new solution that will trim recovery time to a matter of minutes.

Hubbard and Don Sander, computer systems analyst, are part of a 13-person IT group that tapped Gateway to orchestrate a disaster recovery solution combining Gateway servers, Hitachi SANs and Topio backup software for MSD. The new solution replaces traditional backup tape methods by maintaining a virtually perfect replication of all data on MSD's servers and workstations. If a natural disaster ruins the servers, the backup solution can easily download a replicated version of the data, completely restoring the server's full image to how it looked before the crash.

"It is an image of the system," Sander said. "It's like going over and turning on a computer, and it's an exact duplicate of the one you just lost."

The technology slashed server restoration time from hours to roughly 30 minutes, according to Sander.

More than a year ago, Sander, Hubbard and their team realized that MSD's old backup tape recovery system would take too long to restore missing data. Furthermore, they would need to juggle several backup tapes (hoping they would work correctly and not be missing data), load multiple software suites and operating systems, and make sure they configured it all perfectly. After all of that, they would finally be able to begin their recovery process.

"This takes hours -- almost days -- to do. So we were looking into a better solution of getting systems back online, and that's where Topio came in," Sander said.

Long-Distance Relationship
The new solution enables MSD to provide data backup for outlying plants, while keeping services synchronized at MSD's headquarters. Sander said this function would have come in handy with the flood at the Sycamore Creek plant.

Naturally, not having to buy extra backup hardware for remote plants brings MSD huge savings in labor and technology expenses. Instead, server data travels between remote plants and MSD's headquarters through a T1 line efficiently enough that it doesn't deplete the plant's bandwidth, said Sander.

Gateway helped MSD deploy the new backup solution using its partnerships with Hitachi and Topio. Sander said the solution is incredibly easy to use, particularly when setting up synchronization.

"I've worked with a lot of different backup systems, and they're horrendous to set up," said Sander. "This is Web driven. You pretty much just click, drag and click. It's so easy. It's a dream."

Combining that simple functionality with MSD's reliable Gateway servers and Hitachi storage makes outlying plant backups and everyday maintenance a far less cumbersome task.

Sander said he conducted mock disaster and recovery trials with the new solution and couldn't believe how easy it was to restore the system, which was a dramatic contrast to using traditional backup tapes.

"There are so many things that can go wrong with the old backup tape method," Sander said. "I feel a lot safer now."

Steady and Reliable
Working with Gateway to deploy the disaster- recovery solution was an easy choice for MSD, according to Hubbard. The organization has used Gateway products since 1992.

MSD has more than 500 Gateway computers, a mixture of desktops -- most recently, the E-6500 with Intel