Johannesburg, 13 May 2008
With over 250 branch offices located around the country, publishing group Media24 was faced with a not-uncommon problem. Backing up essential company data was a perpetual difficulty yet a critical requirement for appropriate corporate governance.
However, once the company discovered the Attix5 Backup Professional solution, the challenge of a reliable, secure and automated backup and restore regime for its servers was settled cost-effectively for remote offices.
Media24 is Africa's leading publishing group and offers information, entertainment and education 24 hours a day. The group has interests in newspapers, magazines, Internet businesses, book publishing, private education, printing plants and distribution companies.
According to Petrie van der Westhuizen, Manager Technical Specialists - Information Technology at Media24, since all publications are made up electronically, technology systems and the data they contain are essential to Media24's business. "If the technology systems aren't working or if data is corrupt, there won't be any newspapers or magazines," he says.
"We have a lot of branch offices all over the country in which pages for the various publications are made up. It has always been a problem to create and maintain backups in these offices, particularly since it is not practical to have a technology administrator on site," he continues.
Traditionally, Van der Westhuizen says tape-based systems were deployed at each and every office. However, this was less than ideal, he relates. "The trouble with these devices is that tapes weren't always changed when they should be. If something went wrong, we'd have to send a technician out to fix it, and as data footprints grew, the capacity of the tapes would often be too small," he explains.
On top of that, he says there was the constant worry of the possibility of theft at a branch office which might result in the complete loss of valuable data.
"In our research to find a better solution, we tried several software solutions but found them to be unsuitable. Particularly with large database files, if the structure changed, some systems would see the entire database as a new file, requiring the backup of enormous files," Van der Westhuizen says.
The answer lay in Attix5's Backup Professional. "In this solution we have a fully automated backup which centralises all data at our head office. Using our dedicated lines, Backup Professional automatically backs everything up securely to the data centre."
Noting that the transmission of large files is bandwidth-intensive, Van der Westhuizen points out specific features of the solution. "Initial backups are made on-site and physically copied to the data centre. From there, the Attix5 client analyses data at a binary level and backs up only the parts of those files which have changed since the last backup and transmits these and any new files created since the last backup. While we do this on our dedicated lines, we could just as easily do this over the Internet."
"It is so effective," says Van der Westhuizen, "that even those offices with low-bandwidth connections have no issues in ensuring their information is protected. There is no longer any need for manual intervention. It all happens automatically and with absolute security and reliability."
Restoring data is equally simple, he says, stressing that this is the litmus test for the efficacy of any backup solution. "This can be done over our lines or by making a physical copy at the data centre and dispatching it to the relevant site."
Michael Law, Attix5 managing director, says the company is focused on bringing simplicity, reliability and security to an essential function. "The value of backups is usually only fully appreciated when data is lost. However, it is a challenge for companies with distributed environments like Media24 to ensure their remote offices are protected. Backup Professional provides the assurance of automation, removing the possibility of human error or forgetfulness and delivering reliable data protection."
Van der Westhuizen says the biggest advantage of using Backup Professional is that he is able to sleep soundly at night. "Our data is secure and we no longer have to spend on tape devices and media. That's a major relief."
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