PAV customers> Parker Pen

Secure back-up and fast retrieval for Parker Pen.

Business Background
The Parker Pen Company, with its headquarters in Newhaven, is amongst the most famous brand names in the world. With a heritage going back to 1888, the company's products are universally recognised as the finest writing instruments available today.

Requirement – Improve data back-up storage and retrieval.
Our long term relationship with the highly professional Parker Pen IT department means that we are often invited to provide ad hoc solutions for one-off problems, as well as designing and implementing IT solutions for more strategic issues. In this instance, we were asked to provide an answer to the ongoing problem of greater and greater amounts of data needing to be backed-up and stored daily. With multiple file servers and tape drives to be maintained as well as a multitude of tapes to be preserved and transported off site every day, the problem was escalating. However, the answer lay not in providing greater resources but in changing the technology.

PAV Solution
We installed a CommVault centralised data back-up and recovery system, supported by HP Proliant storage solutions and HP Ultrium tape libraries. Now, all the Parker Pen servers back up directly to a disk with a massive storage capacity measured in terrabytes. The disk regularly downloads to a single tape drive and that tape is archived off-site. For additional security and as a Disaster Recovery measure, the intention is to re-site the CommVault System a considerable distance from the building which houses the main data centre.

Outcome
Not only is the new system simpler to maintain, but it is much quicker in both the data storage and retrieval functions. Whereas previously information could only be recovered by isolating the appropriate tape, extracting it from storage and then finding the required data, the new system holds up to fourteen days of backed-up material in the readily accessible form of on-line disk.