Quest Chooses DataON & Microsoft to Power Their Veeam Cloud Connect Backup Service

Company Overview

Quest is a worldwide leader in technology management that operates a global network of Service Delivery Centers that provide hybrid cloud/managed services/on-site configuration focused on security, disaster recovery, business continuity, data backup, and replication. Its twenty-five Service Delivery Centers are located in six nations on three continents.

IT Challenge: Find a hardware partner to power a Veeam Cloud Connect solution to provide the most cost-effective backup storage for Quest customers

Three years ago, Quest became one of the first managed service providers (MSPs) to offer a Veeam Cloud Connect backup service and today they are a Platinum-level Veeam Cloud and Service Provider.

Quest needed to find a hardware partner to power their Veeam Cloud Connect service for disaster recovery. It had previously deployed traditional SANs from the leading storage vendors but felt their solutions were too expensive for archival storage use. It had also tried white box solutions but couldn’t provide the throughput and high-availability needed.

Quest’s goals in their search for a storage partner:

• Cost-effective storage
• High availability
• High IOPS and throughput
• Support for Resilient File System (ReFS) file system
• Support for Veeam Cloud Connect

The Solution: DataON S2D-5208i HCI with Microsoft Window Server 2016 Storage Spaces Direct

Quest had previously deployed DataON storage solutions, which led them to explore a DataON solution with Windows Server 2016. Windows Server 2016 with Storage Spaces Direct provides good IOPS performance and would allow Quest to put their backup infrastructure on a Storage Spaces Direct converged infrastructure.

Quest found Storage Spaces Direct and DataON to be a very flexible solution. Not only could it serve as a disaster recovery and backup repository but it could also serve as compute nodes for their main infrastructure or whatever backup infrastructure they use.

Flexibility and customization are at the core of Quest’s values. It is a business that wants to help their customers and works with its customers to identify their IT needs and build a solution that meets those needs.

“DataON worked closely with Quest to find the right solution – by talking with us, sharing information, building a solution, and doing the testing and validation,” said Lewis Walker, Manager of Systems infrastructure Engineering, Quest.

DataON proposed their S2D-5208i converged cluster appliance with the new Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processors with Intel C620 Series chipsets for optimized performance, density and capacity. The S2D-5208i is a hybrid solution that can achieve over 1.2M IOPS in a 4-node cluster. It combines high-performance NVMe SSDs with SMB3 networking to maximize performance and capacity.

Paired with the S2D-5208i were DataON DNS-2760 JBODs, which include 3.5” HGST Ultrastar He10 SAS HDDs. These drives are housed in a 4U, 60-bay enclosure. Pre-configured with the S2D-5208i is DataON’s exclusive MUST (Management Utility Software Tool) visibility and management software which provides SAN-like storage monitoring features for customers deploying Windows Server software-defined solutions.

Veeam® Cloud Connect Backup for Service Providers

Veeam Cloud Connect provides cloud-based disaster recovery and offsite backup. It is designed for service providers, making it easy for them to offer hosted backup repositories or complete backup services. Businesses and organizations can now have physical and virtual backups offsite and replicate VMs without the cost and complexity of building and maintaining an offsite infrastructure.

Veeam Cloud Connect is built to integrate deeply with Windows Server 2016 data center technologies, such as Hyper-V, Storage Spaces Direct, Nano Server, advanced Resilient File System (ReFS) and Resilient Change Tracking. It provides full, advanced support for Windows Server 2016, as opposed to the simple ability to backup an instance of Windows Server 2016.

Veeam also provides advanced ReFS integration, which allows it to support ReFS volumes on internal, direct-attached storage (DAS), Storage Spaces and Storage Spaces Direct. This provides faster full backup creation and transformation performance, as well as reduces storage requirements and improves reliability. Additionally, it improves the availability of backup storage by significantly reducing its load, which results in improved backup and
restore performance.

Results

Quest now has eight S2D-5208i converged appliances paired with DNS-2760 JBODs in production today. They all run Veeam Cloud Connect and SQL Server – all in a Storage Spaces Direct converged infrastructure.
The new solution not only improved backup times with high IOPS performance but also provided the flexibility that they couldn’t get with traditional storage. If Quest is close to reaching their maximum storage capacity, it’s easy to expand by adding more drives to their JBODs. Also, the DataON solution can be expanded up to 16 nodes. By adding nodes, this increases the usable capacity from 60% to 80%. This flexibility adds cost savings that can’t be calculated. As far as the cost savings that can be calculated, Quest estimates that they were able to get a 50-80% cost-per-TB savings by moving to Windows Server 2016 Storage Spaces Direct from a traditional SAN.

About Quest

Quest is a worldwide leader in technology management offering a portfolio of professional, Cloud, and Managed Services. Either on-site or from one of over 25 secure global Service Delivery Centers, Quest offers Security, Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity, Data Backup and Replication, Desktops as a Service, and Infrastructure as a Service. Quest is listed on the most current Solution Provider 500 list. Quest® and copyrights by Quest® are registered trademarks of Quest Media & Supplies, Inc. All rights reserved.

About Veeam

Veeam® has pioneered a new market of Availability for the Always-On Enterprise™ by helping organizations meet recovery time and point objectives (RTPO™) of less than 15 minutes for any application, any data, on any cloud. Veeam’s goal is to deliver a fundamentally new kind of solution that delivers non-stop business continuity, digital transformation agility with multi-cloud management and migration, and analytics and visibility with actionable insights for data management, operational performance, and compliance.

About HGST

HGST is a wholly owned and independently operated subsidiary of Western Digital Corporation, marketing and selling its leading storage portfolio around the world. HGST strategically invests in high-growth and emerging technology segments, with expanding research and innovative product development.