Biological Research Institute
Learn how this specialised biological research institute ensured data protection in the face of rapid growth and growing demand for availability and resilience.
INNOVATIVE BACKUP & DATA protection
In today’s complex environment, biotech companies are facing increasing pressure to comply with evolving regulations and keep costs in check, while improving patient outcomes.
Master data management offers life sciences organisations a range of benefits from a single source of the truth and data that is validated, accessible and secure.
To bring backup costs under control and assure the performance of data recovery, backup was required across two data centres.
The goal was to deliver a fully managed service and integrate with existing on-premises storage to control costs.
0 day
UK-led research reduced the time taken to sequence the human genome from 10 years to a single day
0 %
reduction in time required by collecting patient data through wearable IoT devices in siteless digital clinical trials
0 GB
disk space required to store one genome – assuming a 3 billion letter human genome length and average depth of coverage at 30x
challenge
The existing Dell EMC VNX unified storage system was performing well but was only deployed in one site, and had been superseded by a later model in the vendor portfolio.
The refresh cycle introduced an opportunity to modernise with technology from a proven partner and to upgrade to a high-availability environment across the two sites.
The third party backup service limited restore performance – the client wanted to bring the backup infrastructure under greater control while still benefitting from a managed service.
SOLUTION
CSI presented various options from vendors other than the incumbent, which subsequently further highlighted the strengths in pursuing a Dell EMC solution.
The solitary VNX was replaced with a pair of Dell EMC Unity storage systems, replicating VMware virtual machines between sites, instantly elevating the business’ disaster recovery capability.
A pair of Dell EMC Data Domain appliances were implemented at the two sites, deduplicating, compressing and replicating backup data managed by Dell EMC Avamar.
The Cloud Tier function is used to automatically migrate historical backup copies onto the ECS object storage for cost-efficient long-term retention deduplicated on disk.
Data protection is fully managed by CSI’s Helix Protect enterprise service.
CSI’s independent approach gave us the confidence to invest further in Dell Technologies. Unity Storage offers the best transition and Data Domain provides the ideal opportunity to integrate with ECS via Cloud Tier function.
IT Manager – Biological Research Institute
outcomes
Disaster recovery no longer relies solely on the backup solution, with data immediately available from mirrored virtual machines at either site.
Where recovery from backup is required, data is now swiftly recoverable from locally deployed backup appliances rather than via the wide area network.
The Helix Protect backup service, which includes daily reports and quarterly service reviews, assures the customer that data is being protected and that the infrastructure can scale to the ongoing data growth.
The use of existing on-premises object storage for long-term retention further brings costs under control.
About our client
Our client, a specialist biological research institute, develops high performance, novel DNA/RNA sequencing technology that is accessible and easy to use.
The same solutions also provide real-time analysis for agriculture, food and water surveillance.
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