Premiere Networks Replaces EMC Avamar With Druva

Druva, Inc. announced that Premiere Networks, a large radio syndicator in the US and part of iHeartMedia, Inc., has selected its solution to backup and protect the recordings of some of the most listened radio shows, ensuring millions of listeners receive the programs they expect every day.

Launched in parallel with a broader corporate cloud strategy, Druva’s SaaS platform has enabled the end user to meet internal data policies, improve RTO and RPO by more than 50%, and eliminate the need for regular repairs, blackout windows and software upgrades previously necessary with on-premises EMC Avamar hardware.

Premiere Networks reaches more than 245 million Americans each month with more than 100 syndicated programs, including On Air with Ryan Seacrest and The Steve Harvey Morning Show.

Many of these radio shows are recorded weekly, creating large files that are challenging to compress, store and share with more than 7,000 affiliates across the country. Managing and protecting this data across 2 major facilities was tedious, resulting in ballooning annual costs coupled with frequent, time-intensive hardware repairs and upgrades. Since adopting Druva, Premiere Networks has been able to leverage consumption-based pricing, reliability, and automation capabilities to reduce management and oversight by more than 80% per week while improving coordination between thousands of radio stations across the country.

“After using Avamar for three years, we were hit with yearly increases of $100,000 from Dell EMC for hardware and software maintenance,” said Ruben Oganesyan, director of IT, Premiere Networks. “Alongside the improved recovery times, we’ve lowered our TCO and reduced the time my team needs to spend on backup thanks to Druva’s automated upgrades, patching and management. Because we don’t have to think about backup hardware or software, our small IT team can now use time much more strategically.“

As part of a broader corporate cloud strategy launched by its parent company, iHeartMedia, to minimize escalating costs, eliminate the need for onsite DR hardware and support broader cloud workload migration, Premiere Networks required a single solution that could manage and protect more than 200 VMs and several Windows and Linux servers. The results with Druva were immediately apparent, even during the PoC, where the IT team was able to backup and restore SQL databases to remote offices 30% faster compared to on-premises Avamar grids. This performance was improved further once the team implemented Druva CloudCache. Additionally, with Druva’s built-in deduplication architecture, Premiere Networks has been able to decrease its backup storage needs.

“The sheer size and scale of the cloud, combined with its robust security capabilities, competitive pricing, and continuous innovation, has created a technology that is capable of transforming any business, sector or industry,” said Matt Lindeman, chief customer officer, Druva. “Radio has been a mainstay of entertainment for decades, and as it has evolved from analog to digital, leveraging the latest technology has become critical to delivering high-quality content every day. Now, Premiere Networks can rest assured their passionate audiences will never have to miss their favorite programs, and can instead focus on further improving the experience for millions.“

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