Vinchin centrally backs up and manages XCP-ng data centers for Belgium healthcare IT solution provider

I've been working with Vinchin Backup & Recovery for a while. I must therefore say that I am very satisfied with this backup solution. The ease of use is my greatest asset. Not to mention the very reasonable price in the industry. I am therefore also convinced that Vinchin Backup & Recovery certainly has added value to our company.

Carlo Maesen, Linux Sys Admin 

Asterisque

Business Challenge

Founded in 2012 in Heerlen, Limburg, Asterisque is a relatively young software development company that offers EHRs (Electronic Health Records), ECDs (Emergency Clinical Data Systems), process flows, and care process solutions for healthcare experts. Certified by the Dutch information security in the healthcare sector and international data exchange standard, Asterisque is growing larger and more professional in the industry.

Asterisque has the XCP-ng 8.2 cluster with 3 nodes running on 2 separate data centers for its various healthcare solution applications, systems, web servers, and other services. These data are crucial in the company's survival and development as they contain all the information since its establishment. Thus, it’s necessary to have an XCP-ng backup solution in place so the data will be stored safely.

“We used to adopt a backup solution with a subscription license, which not only drives up costs of storage over time as we are growing but also lacks scalability and advanced offsite disaster recovery features. We also sometimes experience failed backup jobs and the whole process is interrupted but we have no clue. So, we have to watch it during the process. But the slow backup performance makes it even harder,” said Carlo Maesen, Linux Sys Admin of Asterisque.

Vinchin Solution

Vinchin Backup & Recovery automates the XCP-ng backup process with preset backup schedules that run the job at set time points and email notifications under different scenarios, such as job failure due to storage shortage, system-level warnings and error messages, etc. And then centrally manages all data backups in one web-based console and displays jobs in plain sight. “Backup is totally different from the legacy solution. It’s like the software is self-policing and kind of set and forget. Finally, we could focus on what we should do,” said Carlo.

The backup of 2 data centers is always a challenge for Asterisque, which would be fine because the 2 centers are independent of each other, but things get complicated from the moment they decide to merge them. Vinchin Backup & Recovery seamlessly inter-transfer XCP-ng backups between different nodes to relieve backup pressure, while the branch data can be copied remotely for offsite disaster recovery to avoid business interruption.

And speaking of backup pressure, the software company is struggling with storage space. Vinchin Backup & Recovery reduces at least 50% of backup data through data deduplication and compression, and speeds up the backup process via CBT (Changed Block Tracking)-supported incremental backup, multithreaded transmission, and LAN-Free mode without network consumption, therefore lifting the speed hugely. “So fast that we finish our days of backup work on the weekends. Absolutely incredible,” said Carlo.

The backup storage protection of Vinchin solution blocks any unauthorized accessing attempts and allows only the Vinchin server to get into or modify the backup data. This prevents malware threat actors from infecting data. Asterisque could also enable data encryption during backup, which asks for passwords for data recovery to avert data exfiltration. Additionally, there are offsite backup copies available for the IT services to deploy outside the main production environment in another location. “Our backup data is perfectly secured in Vinchin backup server. And the instant recovery gives us peace of mind,” noted Carlo.

Result

Vinchin Backup & Recovery offers Asterisque multi-branch data backup protection to relieve the backup load from 2 data centers. In addition, it substantially speeds up the backup with all sorts of backup technologies. The software also releases storage space through data reduction techniques and protects data backups in the server with anti-malware strategies and offsite backup copies. “Perpetual license with such wonderful backup features sounds great. One solution for 2 data centers. Vinchin Backup & Recovery is definitely worth a shot,” concluded Carlo.

customer_story_asterisque.pdf