Defending Data: New Mexico State AODA Presents A Compelling Case For Disaster Recovery And Business Continuity

The AODA's IT infrastructure is largely Windows-based, with Microsoft Exchange and SQL serving as the most widely used applications. Tape drives in each of the 32 offices served as the only backup method, and often proved to be unreliable. The disparate environments and lack of centralized backup operations created significant challenges in protecting data and maximizing employee productivity. Since the AODA also did not have DR technologies in place, it was at risk of permanently losing data in the event of a natural disaster or everyday server or application failure.

After researching several different solutions, the New Mexico AODA implemented DR-Scout, a combined DR and business continuity software offering from Santa Clara-based InMage Systems. Based on patent-pending continuous data protection (CDP) technology, DR-Scout addresses disaster recovery, continuous local backup and application availability. The AODA found DR-Scout to be more flexible than replication/snapshot solutions, and more efficient at data recovery than virtual tape library (VTL) or de-duplication technologies.

The AODA leveraged DR-Scout to consolidate the backup operations of its 32 offices. Data from its southern group of district offices was replicated into a facility in Las Crusas, with the northern districts replicating into an Albuquerque facility. E-mail, messaging systems and databases were set up to automatically fail over from the primary site to the secondary site during disasters and everyday disruptions.