Case Study: Mimco, Inc.
Solution OverviewCustomer ProfileMimco, Inc. is the sales and marketing arm of Magna International, a leading global supplier of technologically advanced automotive components, systems, and complete modules. Magna employs approximately 67,000 people at 173 manufacturing divisions and 43 product development and engineering centers in 19 countries. Business SituationMimco needed an affordable, efficient, reliable way to do hot backups of critical accounting, sales, and e-mail files so that the files could be located and accessed more quickly than was possible with the nightly tape backups. SolutionMimco installed two Windows® Powered Iomega NAS P400m servers, which are used for hot backups of key user files. Benefits
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Company Overview
As the sales and marketing arm of Magna International, a leading global supplier of technologically advanced automotive components, systems, and modules, Mimco, Inc., serves virtually all of Magna's 173 manufacturing divisions and 43 product development and engineering centers in 19 countries.
Mimco runs its accounting system on the Microsoft® Windows NT® Server operating system and runs other applications on Novell NetWare. Mimco IT Manager Jacob Choy is responsible not only for keeping all those systems working, but also for ensuring the integrity of all current and backed-up data.
Business Challenge
Every night, Choy's team backs up all the company servers to tape. However, if an individual user accidentally deletes an important file, finding and restoring that file from tape is a time-consuming process. It was taking two to four hours to locate the files on tape, and sometimes there was a problem with the tape so it couldn't be restored. Also, Mimco's users tended to move around so that one day they would be working on the Novell platform and the next day they'd be working on Windows NT. Novell-based files backed up to tape had to be restored to Novell servers, and Windows NT–based files had to be restored to Windows NT-based servers. This made it even more difficult to make restored files available to users quickly and easily.
Choy decided that he needed a way to perform frequent hot backups for key users in accounting and management so that he could quickly find the files required, regardless of the platform on which they were stored. Because Mimco already was using several Iomega products, Choy turned to Iomega for a network attached storage (NAS) solution. Iomega suggested the Windows® Powered Iomega P400m Series NAS servers because they could back up and restore both Windows NT–and Novell-based files, were easy to set up and manage, and performed backup and restore functions five-to-ten times as fast as tape backup systems. "The Windows Powered NAS was an instant improvement; it's great," Choy says.
Solution
Mimco purchased two Windows Powered Iomega NAS P400m servers, each with 160 gigabytes (GB) of RAID 5 storage across four hot-swappable hard disks. Each server features Windows Powered NAS, an optimized version of the Microsoft Windows 2000 Server operating system; seamless integration with the Active Directory® directory service; dual network interface cards (NICs); and several value-added software features, including a Web-based user interface, Persistent Storage Manager, storage management software, and Iomega management utilities and backup software.
One of the NAS servers is used primarily for hot backups and the other is used to store downloads of product updates and other information technology (IT) files. "Every Friday before I go home, I do hot backups for key users to the Windows Powered Iomega NAS," Choy says. "If it's approaching the end of the month or if someone is working on a large file or project that needs to be backed up more frequently, I'll do additional backups in between. That way, if something happens to the file, I can quickly restore it from the NAS rather than having to search through the tapes."
Business Benefits
Fast Ad Hoc Backups Deliver Faster Access to Key Files
Mimco's daily tape backups take about eight hours overnight and involve multiple servers. If a problem occurs with a tape backup, Choy doesn't find it until the next morning, and at that point he has to wait until the next night's backup to resolve it. The hot backups involve a smaller group of files and take typically between 15 and 30 minutes. Because the Windows Powered Iomega NAS is attached to the server that holds the files it is backing up, these hot backups can be performed during the work day without interfering with other network activity.
"I can set up the Windows Powered Iomega NAS to copy massive files from my servers, then walk away, work on some other tasks, and come back in a half hour, and the backup is done," Choy says. "With the Windows Powered Iomega NAS, I can do what the tape did in less than half the time."
Easy Setup and Management Reduce IT Costs
The Windows Powered Iomega NAS servers connected to the network right out of the box. "It really only took about 10 minutes to make it work with both the Windows NT and Novell platforms," Choy says.
Choy also finds the Windows Powered NAS easy to access for what little management is required. "If I need to modify the settings or add or delete users, I just access the Windows Powered Iomega NAS box from virtually anywhere, using Windows Terminal Services," Choy says.
Faster Restore Capability Decreases User Downtime
Restoring files from daily tape backups can take several hours. "First I have to find the proper tapes and reload the database, which, because it's a tape array, can take two to four hours," Choy says. "It may only take 10 minutes to run the restore, depending on how many files are involved, but by that time the user has already waited four or five hours or more."
Doing frequent hot backups of key user files with the Windows Powered Iomega NAS shortens this process significantly. "It's easy to find a file on the Windows Powered Iomega NAS because it's under the user's directory," Choy says. "Once I find the file, I just copy it back to the user's directory, which takes only 5 or 10 minutes. That saves a lot of downtime for the user. The ability to restore files rapidly with the Windows Powered Iomega NAS also helps the IT department respond to business needs efficiently and effectively."
Mimco is also planning some future projects that will require much more storage space. The company is considering using larger capacity versions of the Windows Powered Iomega NAS for those projects. "We'll need more storage capacity because we're going to be interacting with our sales and marketing team. What better solution is there than the Windows Powered Iomega NAS?" Choy says.
