Luxury retailer Radley + Co deploys FalconStor Continuous Data Protector for both backup and disaster recovery

This article is brought to you by Retail Technology Review: Luxury retailer Radley + Co deploys FalconStor Continuous Data Protector for both backup and disaster recovery.

FalconStor Software, Inc., the disk-based data protection solutions provider, has announced that London-based luxury retailer Radley + Co has deployed FalconStor Continuous Data Protector (CDP) to provide both disaster recovery (DR) and backup services.

As a company with an international supply chain and retail outlets, Radley + Co produces a lot of data, in many different formats and across multiple sites. The company's primary aim was to replicate data from its data center in London to a remote warehouse location that also serves as its DR site.  

With Radley + Co's London infrastructure almost entirely virtualized on VMware ESX Server, the objective was achieved by deploying a FalconStor DiskSafe agent on each virtualized server. The DiskSafe agent synchronizes data back to a FalconStor CDP appliance which, in turn, replicates to the DR site over a leased line. Snapshots are taken every three hours, enabling roll-back, in three-hour intervals, to up to a week before any disaster occurred or was discovered.

However, the company realised that the same FalconStor solution could also meet its backup requirements. "At one time, we had a sizeable window available in which to do our backups," says Francis Rodrigues, IT support manager, Radley + Co. "However, once the business expanded into the USA, systems were put to use for far longer periods of time, reducing the backup window to the point where it was almost non-existent. But we realised we could use the snapshots generated by FalconStor CDP to solve the backup problem by employing FalconStor HyperTrac Backup Accelerator technology to archive data onto tape.  

"FalconStor CDP with HyperTrac Backup Accelerator capability is a completely non-disruptive solution and the business benefit is clear: we have protected the business against failure caused by data loss, however that data loss might occur," he added.

Previously, the company's DR provisioning consisted primarily of backing up to tape, with a strategy of restoring from tape and restarting operations as well as possible. Scenario testing - the results of which inspired the FalconStor project - showed that recovery was time-consuming, required the involvement of expensive consultants, and would involve a loss of operations and data.  

Radley + Co is a market leader in handbag and accessory design, with operations in several countries.