Serit Skagerak AS

Solution

Serit Skagerak replaced all of its previous VM backup solutions with VM Explorer. The company is now using OpenText™ to back up VMs that provide spam filtering to 1,500 users, virtual desktops to 450 users, and telephone services to 150 users. This includes more than 70 terminal server and 50 database VMs, and VMs running Active Directory domain controllers, Microsoft Dynamics, Oracle databases, MySQL, Microsoft Internet Information Services, Apache, and Visma Global.

Results

Since Serit Skagerak’s employees no longer need to manually create these backup scripts, they are saving hours of work every week. This means they can spend more time on other tasks that generate business revenue, and provide better support to customers. “More personal attention to end-users creates happy and loyal customers,” says Schlytter-Henrichsen.

VM Explorer is also effective when Serit Skagerak needs to get customers up and running again after an outage. Serit Skagerak has needed to restore VMs on six occasions since switching to VM Explorer, and in each case its customers did not lose any data.

The new setup is particularly useful in the event a customer’s VM is infected with malware. Rather than searching for and removing the malware, Serit Skagerak can simply shut down the whole VM and quickly restore it from a backup—sometimes in as few as six minutes.

“Our customers are very happy we can do that, because they can be certain the virus is gone,” says Schlytter-Henrichsen.

After more than five years using VM Explorer, Schlytter-Henrichsen says the reliability of the product gives him confidence that the data Serit Skagerak manages is being properly protected. Serit Skagerak even receives VM Explorer backup reports, which include green or yellow alerts indicating whether backups are working. “Before, we wouldn’t have finished checking the backups before leaving work. Now it takes half a second,” Schlytter-Henrichsen says.

“If you can’t rely on your backup then there’s no point being in business,” he adds. “I’m so happy with VM Explorer that I haven’t looked at (any other backup solutions) for the last five years. I know 100 percent that my backup works,” he says. “It’s a small piece of software that does a big job.”

Another key benefit of VM Explorer is its ability to back up both VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V VMs, Schlytter-Henrichsen says. Serit Skagerak uses Microsoft Hyper-V VMs for testing.

Serit Skagerak considered several other commercial VM backup products including Veeam and Symantec Backup Exec, but found these products too expensive for the scale of its operations. Schlytter-Henrichsen also valued the ability to install the 30-day trial version of VM Explorer, allowing him to quickly test its capabilities. “Price-wise, most of them fell through. VM Explorer was reasonably priced,” he says.

If you can’t rely on your backup then there’s no point being in business. I’m so happy with Micro Focus (now OpenText™) VM Explorer that I haven’t looked at (any other backup solutions) for the last five years.