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Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey improves data
recovery speeds by more than
180 per cent with de-duplication Business challenge Safeguard availability and integrity of vital mapping and
corporate data Maintain customer confidence in mapping data Cope with annual data growth of 10 per cent IT solution Replaced backup tape libraries with data de-duplication solution Enabled data compression rates of 50:1 Deployed mirrored disaster recovery device for real-time data
synchronisation Project results Improved recovery times by 1,000 per cent for small files and
180 per cent for larger files Slashed restore time for key systems by half Enabled 100 per cent backup reliability Business benefits Reduced costs and complexity of backing up data Increased business continuity capabilities Enhanced operational efficiency Customer overview More than 1,400
employees Five million paper maps
printed every year Mapped over 450 million
different features of the
British landscape Customer More than 440 million different features of the British landscape have
been mapped in detail by Ordnance Survey. Although probably best
known for its paper maps, Ordnance Survey is increasingly involved in
the production of digital data, which now accounts for around 90 per
cent of its business. This information, which has been captured in a
revolutionary database called OS MasterMap, is used by a variety of
organisations from emergency services and utility companies to local
authorities and construction firms to deliver effective and efficient
services. Ordnance Survey data also supports a wide range of location-based
services, such as in-vehicle navigation systems and enables the
creation of new and highly innovative products to meet the needs of
business and public administration. Business need Data is the lifeblood of Ordnance Survey. Every day, it makes around
5,000 updates to its mapping databases. This along with the
increased use of other electronic applications means that Ordnance
Survey is seeing digital data volumes grow by at least 10 per cent
every year. To maintain both business continuity and data integrity, all this
information not only needs to be backed up but also fully recoverable.
As Dave Lipsey, IS Infrastructure Manager at Ordnance Survey,
explains: With such a large proportion of our £105 million revenue
coming from the sale of information, it is essential that we have a
robust data protection and recovery plan in place. Our customers need
to be confident that vital mapping data is not only continuously
available but also of a high quality. Like many organisations, Ordnance Survey had been using tape
libraries and disk staging for data backups. Although Ordnance
Surveys three tape libraries had a capacity of 230 terabytes (TB), its
weekly backup requirement of 70 TB meant that the system was
struggling to cope. As a result, backups were extending into the
working day, which put the performance of production systems at risk. Data recovery times
had exceeded
acceptable limits to
restore a single drive
on a file server could
have involved as
many as 27 tapes. Dave Lipsey,
IS Infrastructure Manager,
Ordnance Survey Case Study
Ordnance Survey The number of tape failures was also increasing and capacity on the
existing system was rapidly disappearing. Ordnance Survey either had to invest in a new tape library to the tune
of £250,000 or radically rethink its approach to data protection. We
needed a more reliable and flexible solution that also was faster and
cheaper to operate. Tape was no longer a viable option for data
backups, comments Dave. Solution The data intensive nature of Ordnance Surveys work was a major
contributory factor to its backup problems: 100 TB of data actually
generates around 900 TB when stored to tape. If we could find a way
to back up only changed data, we would not only use less hardware
but also reduce the time and resources spent on information storage,
comments Dave. Storage management specialists Incentra Solutions helped Ordnance
Survey achieve just this by introducing it to an innovative data de-
duplication solution from Data Domain. As Simon Gay, Director of
Enterprise Solutions for Incentra Solutions, explains: De-duplication
makes backups simple, fast and reliable. Data Domain's solution
identifies duplicate bit-segments across files and databases using a
variable length algorithm allowing economic backup retention on disk
and efficient cost-effective replication. As a result, 50 TB of data will take up just one terabyte of space. To
validate these results, Ordnance Survey enlisted Incentras help to
carry out a proof of concept programme. The results were almost too
good to be true the backup worked every single time and it was
blindingly fast, comments Dave. To get the same capacity as the Data
Domain device, we would have needed to deploy 40 disk arrays at a
cost of around £320,000, adds Dave. The new solution holds 30 days of production data, so fulfils 99.9 per
cent of the organisations restore requests. The high rate of data
compression means that the new solution will also help enhance
disaster recovery at Ordnance Survey. As Kevin Platz, Data Domains We can now commit
to tighter service
levels for data
availability, which
not only aids
operational efficiency
but also improves
the service we
provide to our
customers. Dave Lipsey,
IS Infrastructure Manager,
Ordnance Survey Case Study Ordnance Survey Sales Director for EMEA, confirms: Data replication between the
production and disaster recovery site happens in real-time, as the
amount of incremental information that needs to be copied over is
minimal. If there was a disaster, Ordnance Survey would be able to
restore its core systems and data much more efficiently than if it was
reliant on backup tapes. Results In fact, Ordnance Survey estimates that it can now not only restore its
key systems in half the time but also recover individual files much more
quickly. As Dave testifies: For a small file, single restores are nearly
instantaneous it used to take anything from five minutes to 30
minutes to restore a single file from tape. Even larger files can be
restored 180 per cent faster. Improved data recovery, however, is just the tip of the iceberg in terms
of business benefits. We have seen a huge reduction in the manual
handling of tapes, which will free up one day a week for our backup
operator and eliminate the need for approximately 30 journeys a year
to the disaster recovery site with tapes, adds Dave. The new solution, which went live in April 2007, also takes up 20 per
cent less space and consumes a third of the power that was needed to
operate three tape libraries. Thanks to the new solution, we have 100
per cent backup reliability, which means 100 per cent restore
confidence, comments Dave. With the solution playing such a key role in Ordnance Surveys
business continuity strategy, it has outsourced ongoing support to
Incentra. As well as taking first line support calls, Incentra is also
managing the daily logs from the two Data Domain devices from its
24x7 Network Operations Centre. Incentra helped us at every stage of the project from testing and
developing the business case to installation and support, comments
Dave. Its team was instrumental in transforming our approach to data
backup and identifying a solution that could meet our current and future
business needs. Incentra Solutions is a provider
of complete IT and storage
management solutions to
enterprises and managed
service providers worldwide.
Incentras complete solution
includes professional services,
hardware and software products
with first-call support, IT
outsourcing solutions, and
financing options. www.incentrasolutions.com
+44 (0)203 170 7575. Case Study
Ordnance Survey