Double-Take Software Ensures ERP Continuity for Sakata
 The growing complexity of IT infrastructure makes disaster recovery planning increasingly difficult. Fortunately, simple, cost-effective solutions are available. At Sakata Seed Corporation, Yann Jouveneaux is EMEA regional Director of Information Systems and worldwide DIS for the company's ornamental seeds group. "You have to start by asking yourself the right questions." he says. "Full server redundancy using the Double-Take Software replication solution delivers solid security with an excellent return on investment". For Jouveneaux, other failover solutions either are "unconvincing hack jobs with incomprehensible error messages" or pitched at price points that only major international financial groups can afford. "Double-Take costs little more than our standard backup system but delivers much more", he adds. Positive feedback from Sakata suppliers Dell and RDI, the integrator managing Sakata's WAN, encouraged Jouveneaux in choosing Double-Take.
Simple, Effective Protection
For the moment, seven Windows servers are protected by Double-Take with, on average, four partial switchovers and one complete datacenter switchover per year. Sakata is a mid-sized enterprise whose business-critical ERP solution supports 260 users on 13 sites in 8 countries across the EMEA region, with purchasing, inventory and sales dependent on a Progress database. Yann Jouveneaux wanted an effective, practical solution for business continuity. "Double-Take is based on a simple, low-level approach, with bit-by-bit replication of the application server." he explains. A full image of the production database and system files is maintained in real time on the backup server. Should it be necessary to switch over to the backup server, simple scripts halt the production server, initialise the backup server and transfer IP addresses. Sakata has deployed Double-Take to protect its ERP servers and for the MS-SQL database. Only a few hours were necessary to complete the installation and configuration of the Double-Take solution, to the satisfaction - and relief! - of the IT support team, consisting of just four engineers. Any system administrator can now easily switch servers over, or back, when an incident occurs. "I've done it myself," says Jouveneaux, "switching services from one data center to another in under an hour to recover from an outage." His team has satisfactorily tested temporary switchover as a solution when major system upgrades are required. In day-to-day use, the Double-Take solution is proving to be indispensable. "We no longer need to work evenings and weekends on maintenance and upgrades. All our servers are covered by a Dell Gold support contract with a four-hour response time. When anything happens we simply use Double-Take to switch over to a backup server while the incident is resolved." Over the coming year, Sakata expects to increase virtual server deployments while using Double-Take as a hub for overnight remote site backups.
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Pragmatically Applying ITILv3
Sakata EMEA operates two datacenters on a single site separated by 300 meters. Hardware includes Dell blade servers an EMC CX300 SAN rack and Netasq firewalls. "The group runs a 25 hectare high-security R&D centre in the south of France." Jouveneaux explains. "We have the space to host our own applications." Splitting servers across two sites was the first reflex when a Disaster Recovery Plan was being considered. Continuity of electricity supplies is equally important, however. It turns out that Sakata has invested in massive backup power generation capabilities for its greenhouses on the site, and the datacenter requirements, a tiny proportion of this, are easily covered. All hardware and software follows a three-year revision cycle, reducing operational costs by eliminating older, more failure prone products. The up-to-date images of production machines captured by Double-Take accelerate the initialisation and configuration of "spares". The IT team is, in fact, following ITIL recommendations and is currently rolling out ITILv3. Pragmatic, Jouveneaux comments, "you need to know how to adapt the ITIL recommendation most relevant to your situation." |
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