Brazilian Retail Company Armazem Paraiba Protected With Bacula

Challenge
Armazem Paraiba had an IT environment with a range of data technologies that needed safeguarding from a reliable single platform.

“Previously, we were just using a variety of scripts to do our backup. But then we started looking at professional solutions and were attracted to Bacula Enterprise Edition because it is an open source-based solution that is both scalable and enterprise-grade. It also has centralized management and monitoring of its backup and recovery,” said Josué Campelo Chaves, senior operation manager, Armazem Paraiba.

Being compatible with a broad range of OSs was high on Armazem Paraiba’s strict requirement list for a backup solution: Linux, Windows, AIX, Unix were just some of the systems that had to be catered to. Similarly, Armazem Paraiba needed coverage for a good number of database technologies such as PSQL, MySQL, Oracle, and SQL Server.

“It was not easy to find a solution that could handle all that, especially because we also needed absolute reliability when it came to restoring data, including single file recovery of VMware-based data. Finally, we wanted a solution that freed us from data volume charges but also offered quality technical support,” said Chaves.

Solution
“We did thorough testing of Bacula, but we also carefully checked products like Veeam and BackupExec, to verify the feasibility of using these products in a production environment. After our evaluations were completed, it became clear that Bacula Enterprise Edition was the best solution,” said Chaves.

“We rely on Bacula across our entire IT environment. On the hardware side, we run HP servers wih ISCSI, branches HPMSA1040 , and Dell X2 in our Datacenter with Compellent SC4020 storage. We have about 95TB of backup storage, which is  RDX and Buffalo. Then, on the software side, we are about 99% Linux with a relatively small amount of Windows boxes” said Rubens Cardoso Urquisa, network systems manager, Armazem Paraiba. “We have a lot if internally developed applications, mostly written in ZIM with some others in PHP and Python. The majority of our databases are PostgreSQL and MySQL, and we have a high level of virtualization, using VMware.”

Result
Bacula worked with its close Brazilian partner, Bacula do Brazil, who provided Bacula Enterprise Edition and local support to Armazem Paraiba, completely enabling it to backup and recover data with a range of OSs and database types.

“Bacula even brought us even more value through additional tools such as its VerifyData tool, which verifies volume metadata integrity, as well as file system integrity. It allows us to increase operational security of our IT environment due to its efficient algorithms for verification of media and blocks,” said Chaves.

“Ultimately, Bacula’s high level of compatibility with other technologies, its flexibility, customizability and ease of use are the reasons that we have had so much success with it as a solution. We have also come to appreciate the support we get from Bacula Systems and Bacula do Brazil. If we need any help, they are really responsive,” said Chaves.

“Bacula Enterprise Edition has delivered fantastic value to us, considering its huge range of features combined with the savings we made by avoiding other backup and recovery solutions that charge their customers based on data volume. Of course, the amount of data we have in our IT department is continuously growing, so the fact that we no longer have to worry about being asked to pay more in the future – simply because we are backing up more data – is important to us. Bacula Enterprise Edition is so stable and reliable that we would not want to use anything else. We have complete confidence in Bacula – it just works,” said Chaves.