Enterprise data: all backed
up and ready to restore
Customer profile
Plasma donation center operating company keeps data accessible, simplifies
compliance, and saves time with a Dell enterprise backup and restore solution
Biomedical organizations like The
Interstate Companies help save lives
by providing human source plasma
to pharmaceutical manufacturers and
research organizations as safely and
rapidly as possible. Because efficient
workflows are critical to meet these
goals, IT employees streamline and
automate processes wherever they can.
They also ensure that IT complies with
federal and international regulations
that include requirements for data
availability and disaster recovery (DR).
Interstate Blood Bank, Inc. (IBBI) a
division of The Interstate Companies,
collects and distributes life-saving
human plasma, which is the clear, liquid
portion of human blood. People need
plasma products to survive certain
traumatic injuries such as shock, and
to live with serious disorders including
hemophilia. Global pharmaceutical
companies also use plasma to create
products that help treat and prevent
diseases like tetanus, rabies, measles,
rubella and hepatitis B.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration
and the International Quality Plasma
Program ensure that the organization’s
processes comply with regulations.
One such regulation is the federal
Clinical Lab Information Act, which
requires the protection of donors’
medical records as well as laboratory
data despite any outage or emergency.
To help meet requirements, IBBI
previously used Symantec Backup Exec
to replicate files from a laboratory in
Memphis, Tennessee, as well as 23
plasma donor centers and nine wholeblood centers in 13 states.
Keeping the focus on rapid plasma
distribution rather than data backups
Although backup processes are
mission-critical, IT personnel were
spending too much time managing
them. Lenny Goodman, director of
“We can restore a 4-gigabyte database from
tape in 12 minutes using Dell NetVault and
the DR4100 because peak data-transfer rates
reach 100 megabytes per second. This is
pretty phenomenal because we’re not using a
fibre network.”
Lenny Goodman, Director of Information Technologies, Interstate Blood Bank, Inc.
Company The Interstate
Companies
Industry Life Sciences
Country United States
Employees 1,200
Website www.interstate
bloodbank.com
Business need
Interstate Blood Bank, Inc (IBBI)
needed a more reliable and affordable
solution to back up and restore
enterprise data as required by federal
and international regulatory agencies.
Solution
IT personnel are deploying a Dell
backup and recovery solution
that simplifies deployment and
management with built-in plugins, reduces backup volumes with
compression and deduplication, and
generates alerts if any issues occur.
Benefits
• Protects source plasma and
laboratory sample data with less
effort
• Streamlines regulatory compliance
• Boosts IT staff’s efficiency and cuts
backup costs by up to 50 percent
• Saves space by reducing replicated
file sizes by 9:1
• Speeds database restoration with
100-Mbps data transfers
Solutions at a glance
• Data Protection
Information Technologies at IBBI,
says, “Our previous backup solution
was unreliable. It would continue
trying to back up data even if media
wasn’t available, and we couldn’t get
deduplication to work.” They also had
to take virtual machines offline to make
a copy.
NetVault Backup so it automatically
replicates information from one donor
center and a core Oracle database to
the DR4100. After the data is stored
in the DR4100, it’s compressed and
deduplicated. NetVault Backup archives
the compressed files on an existing Dell
PowerVault TL2000 tape library.
Managing software plug-ins was timeconsuming, too. “We had to purchase
separate licenses for plug-ins with our
Symantec product, and the license
renewal timeframe for each varied,”
Goodman explains. “So the license for
Backup Exec might run from March to
March, but the plug-in license for SQL
Server might run from June to June.”
IT personnel maintained plug-ins for
Oracle®, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL®,
Microsoft SharePoint Server and
Microsoft Hyper-V Server.
When IT staff have questions, they use
the Dell self-service customer portal
or they call Dell directly. “One of my
favorite things about dealing with Dell
is the excellent support,” Goodman
says. “Our Dell contact has been just
wonderful. It’s great to know that Dell
Support is always there if we need it.”
Saving time and reducing backup costs
by up to 50% with one reliable solution
To overcome backup challenges, IT
personnel researched alternative
technologies in Gartner studies and
tested options from Barracuda Networks
and Dell. They chose an end-to-end
solution that includes the Dell DR4100
backup appliance, Dell NetVault Backup
software and Dell ProSupport. Goodman
says, “Many IT organizations, including
IBBI, are really happy with Dell NetVault.
Plus, we could use it to reduce backup
costs by up to 50 percent because it
includes a broad suite of plug-ins so we
don’t have to buy and manage so many
separate licenses.”
Rolling it out one site at a time, with
dependable support
For the initial implementation, engineers
deployed one Dell DR4100 with 9TB
of capacity. They also configured
Speeds recovery with 100-Mbps
transfer rates
By using Dell technology, the
organization has boosted data
availability. “We can restore a 4-gigabyte
database from tape in 12 minutes using
Dell NetVault and the DR4100 because
peak data-transfer rates reach 100
megabytes per second,” Goodman says.
“This is pretty phenomenal because
we’re not using a fibre network to
connect components.” Engineers can
also avoid taking virtual machines offline.
“We can back up virtual machines using
NetVault while they are running, which
is something we were never able to do
before.”
Boosts efficiency and simplifies
compliance
IT personnel can now focus on digitizing
other workflows to accelerate the
delivery of life-saving plasma. Goodman
explains, “We’re more efficient, freeing
up about four hours per week, because
NetVault is more manageable and
reliable than our previous solution. The
wizard automates installation, and
we can easily set up job notifications
and warnings using the graphical user
interface. We’re also alerted immediately
by email if something didn’t work, as
required by industry regulators.”
Although IBBI is still in the early stages
of its implementation, Goodman and
his team will soon migrate all backup
processes to the NetVault solution.
“We always put a lot of work into the
first server, workstation and process,”
explains Goodman. “After we run this
solution for a while, we’ll replicate it
throughout our organization. We also
plan on implementing a second NetVault
server at a different location as an extra
layer of protection.”
Services
Dell Services
- Dell ProSupport
Reduces file size by 9:1 and cuts costs
IBBI will also save money by minimizing
future infrastructure requirements. “We
need less space for our backups with
Dell DR4100 because the DR appliance
reduces backup file sizes by about
nine to one with compression and
deduplication,” says Goodman.
View all Dell case studies at Dell.com/CustomerStories
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Products & Services
Dell, the Dell logo, PowerVault and NetVault are trademarks of Dell Inc. Other trademarks and trade
names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or
their products. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. Availability
and terms of Dell Software, Solutions and Services vary by region. This case study is for informational
purposes only. Dell makes no warranties – express or implied—in this case study. Reference Number:
10022199 © January 2015. Dell Inc. All Rights Reserved
Hardware
Dell DR4100 Backup Appliance
Dell PowerVault TL2000 tape
library
Software
NetVault Backup 10.0