Nuremberg Airport Finds the Perfect Solution

Addressing Data Security Challenges

Naturally, 24/7 availability is of primary importance at Nuremberg. The airport has been using Novell NetWare on its servers since 1994, with very good results. "Aside from Novell NetWare, we also use other servers with a variety of operating systems." explains Joerg Schilasky, System Administrator for the Novell and Microsoft Systems at Nuremberg Airport. "Above all, the efficiency of resource-utilization through Novell Directory Services (NDS) makes our workload a lot easier." said Schilasky. At the moment, the IT Department has 60 servers in place, six of which are running Novell NetWare. Four of these servers form a cluster. The Nuremberg Airport network has a capacity for roughly 400 GB of data; utilization of that figure is currently at about 70 to 80%. This data resides in a variety of databases and on the Novell cluster, which holds the core of the collected office data. Two Adic tape libraries are used for backup of the major applications-a Faststor7 for a variety of server data, and a Scalar100 for dynamic user data. The Scalar100 has 45 tape slots and only undergoes a tape swap once a month. The fact that the Scalar 100 resides on the SAN of the Novell cluster offers the advantage of direct Novell Server backups.

The End of a Two-Year Wait

With the installation of a the Novell cluster at the end of the year 2000, there followed a period of what Schilasky came to dramatically call "two years of suffering." Originally, the IT staff had purchased a market-leading backup solution which supported a cross-platform environment and interfaced well with the Scalar100 and Faststor7 tape libraries. Despite intensive work with tech support however, the IT team at the airport could not get the Novell clustering functionality to work properly. Another problem they faced was the fact that backups for Unix, NT, or NetWare servers could not be administered through a single catalog. Because the quality of the backups grew progressively worse, the IT team made a decision to look into alternative backup and restore solutions. They soon discovered Backup Express from Syncsort Incorporated, in Woodcliff Lake, NJ. "For almost two years nothing worked properly with our old solution. But it only took two days for things to start running with Backup Express, over a SAN, with a central catalog, and cross platform support," said Schilasky. "We were able to accomplish the initial installation ourselves, with Syncsort's assistance, over the telephone." After successfully running Backup Express in a test environment, it was then installed into the existing infrastructure. According to Schilasky, configurations of the master and device servers were completed in two days, after which full backups could be accomplished, thus allowing for the first data safeguarding procedures.

A "Clean" Solution for Novell Clusters

Today, all the servers in the aviation and general operations areas are secured by Backup Express through one central catalog. According to Schilasky, one outstanding advantage of the product in the new environment is the facility which it provides to Netware cluster backups - Backup Express is "cluster-aware". This means that a backup on the cluster can be failed over to a different node if necessary. Next to the master-server, Nuremberg Airport also has four other device-servers which are linked to the Novell cluster and the SAN. For Schilasky and the staff at Nuremberg Airport, it feels good to be able to leave behind the frustrating experiences of the past and move forward into a secure enterprise with Backup Express.

About Backup Express

Backup Express is an enterprise-wide backup and restore solution designed for Unix, Windows, and NetWare environments and provides support for the broadest range of technologies and platforms. Backup Express is the only solution that supports any combination of Unix, Windows, NetWare, and NDMP/NAS in a SAN, performs backup of all data directly across the fibre network, dynamically shares all tape drives, and controls this single enterprise environment with a single catalog and easy-to-use GUI. Backup Express also supports all eight NDMP incrementals. This provides for complete flexibility when backing up NDMP/NAS devices. Backup Express's distributed architecture allows it to back up to any device in the network whether it is running Unix, Linux, Windows, or NetWare, while maintaining a single central catalog for the entire enterprise. Backup Express can attach tape drives, including large automated libraries, at any server on the enterprise; dynamically allocate drives within a SAN; keep sensitive data off the network; and allow on-line backups of large database servers such as Oracle, SAP, MS Exchange, SQL Server, Sybase, DB2 and Lotus Notes.

About Syncsort

Syncsort Incorporated is a leading developer of high-performance data management and data warehousing software for mainframe, Unix, and Windows environments. For more than 30 years, Syncsort has built a reputation for superior product performance and reliable technical support. An independent market research firm has named Syncsort as one of the top Data Warehouse 100 Vendors for five years in a row and the company was recently chosen as the leading provider of Data Acquisition and Integration products. Over 95% of the Fortune 100 companies are Syncsort customers, and Syncsort's products are used in more than 50 countries to back up and protect data in distributed environments, speed data warehouse processing, improve database loads and speed query processing. For more information, visit the Syncsort web site.