Web host scores deduplication goal

Web host and streaming provider Hostworks has deployed a backup, recovery and deduplication system, affording the company 20 TB of deduplicated data capacity, which ultimately allowed it to support the 2010 FIFA World Cup websites of Australian broadcaster SBS.

Hostworks provides web hosting, demand management, high-transaction websites and video streaming services to some of Australia’s most well-known brands, including the ABC, Network TEN, Ticketek, realestate.com.au and many others.

In 2009, the company looked at ways to improve backup for its dedicated hosting customers. Previously it had used a traditional model of backing up to disk, then to tape. After a period of consideration, the company settled on EMC’s Avamar for backup, recovery and deduplication.

The decision was in part based on a test with existing data that suggested Hostworks could deduplicate up to 99% of its data for some customers, reduce backup windows from hours to minutes and dispense with backup tapes.

In October that year, the company deployed the solution across a four-node grid that provided 8 TB of deduplicated data capacity. By applying source-based deduplication when replicating data between the hosting provider’s Sydney and Adelaide data centres, Hostworks’ salespeople could offer a competitive price for disaster recovery services.

“[The solution] cost-effectively met our need for source-based deduplication, and effective backup and recovery,” said Adrian Britton, General Manager of Technology, Strategy and Innovation, Hostworks.

Since then, the success of the deployment has prompted the company to expand the size of its grid to 10 nodes, giving it approximately 20 TB of deduplicated data capacity. Hostworks now retains customer data online for 30 days, while replicating it daily to a second data centre to ensure business continuity in the event of a disaster.

The company is using several tools from EMC to automate the collection and analysis of information from its backup and recovery systems. This enables customers to view the status of their systems through a dedicated portal. With the tools, the company can also extract information about, and report on, customer environments.

“We are in the business of managing unpredictable demand, so these tools play an absolutely critical role. Longer term, they also allow us to undertake trend analysis and forecasting so we can plan our infrastructure requirements,” Britton says.

As a marker of the system’s success, Hostworks’ business model enabled TV and radio broadcaster SBS to access capacity to support peak demand for its World Game website for the duration of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. During the tournament, the World Game site received 1.5 million unique visitors, and delivered more than 25 million page impressions and 2 million video views.