Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Fashion Leader Redesigns Branch Protection, Gives a Day a Week Back to IT Staff
Overview
Country or Region:United Kingdom
Industry:Manufacturing, Durable Consumer Goods
Customer Profile
Paul Smith designs and manufactures upscale clothing that is sold in shops around the world. Based in Nottingham, England, the company has a staff of 500 and revenues of U.S.$408 million.
Business Situation
Paul Smith wanted to simplify daily backup of branch office data and relieve branch and IT staffs of onerous tape swapping while reducing large data volumes that slowed network performance.
Solution
The company upgraded branch and central office server computers to Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 R2 to take advantage of file compression, directory virtualization, and storage management technologies.
Benefits
One day a week in restored IT productivity
$12,000 a year in tape savings
Fifty percent network bandwidth savings
Better, faster design collaboration
Better storage management / “Having Windows Server 2003 R2 take care of branch office backups is saving one staff member in each office an hour a day…. This labor savings amounts to $20,280 a year companywide.”
James Hunter-Paterson, Network Architect, Paul Smith
Paul Smith is an English fashion retailer known for smart designs and smart technology use. The company recently deployed Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 R2 to take advantage of Distributed File System and other technologies aimed at improving server computer management at its branch offices. Paul Smith has used Windows Server 2003 R2 to overhaul the time-consuming daily backup of branch office data. The previous resource-intensive, tape-based procedure has been replaced with automated replication-based safeguarding that requires no branch staff involvement. The move has restored one day a week of productivity to IT staff and one hour a day of productivity to branch office staff. It’s also saving U.S.$12,000 annually in tape costs. Network bandwidth is 50 percent more efficient, with some file transmissions now taking eight seconds instead of eight hours.
Situation
Fashion company Paul Smith designs and manufactures trend-setting, attention-getting clothing for men and women. For example, the company recently collaborated with the Triumph motorcycle company to create a collection of jackets, jeans, and accessories inspired by the cult motorbike brand—at the same time redesigning the body work and upholstery of a Triumph motorcycle to harmonize with the new line. Paul Smith has been clothing the world’s discriminating dressers since 1976 and sells its designs through 14 shops in the United Kingdom; more than 200 shops in Japan; and outlets in cities around the world, including Paris, Milan, New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore. The company is headquartered in Nottingham, England, and has revenues of U.S.$408 million per year.
Paul Smith carries its trend-setting attitude into company operations as well. The 500-person company makes extensive and pioneering use of technology to work smarter, faster, and more cost-effectively. Paul Smith is a longstanding Microsoft customer and in the past has used Microsoft® products to:
Improve the efficiency and security of messaging and design collaboration (the Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 operating system, Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 communication and collaboration server, and Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000).
Increase security on its Internet gateways (Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004).
Improve the productivity of field employees and reduce phone costs (Microsoft Windows Mobile®2003 software for Smartphones).
Still, opportunities for improved efficiency and cost savings remained. One troublesome task for both IT and branch office staffs was routine data backup. Most of the company’s approximately 45 server computers sit in the company’s Nottingham data center, but there are three servers in the London office and one in each of six regional offices. Backing up data on these branch office servers was, quite simply, a daily pain.
The Nottingham-based IT staff coordinated the backup of branch office data to tape drives each day using Veritas Backup Exec software running on branch server computers (all of which run Windows Server 2003). However, the IT staff had to depend on a worker at each branch office to make sure the backups happened by physically changing tapes and taking the tapes offsite to a secure location. These steps didn’t always happen.
“Although it took someone in each branch office only about 10 minutes a day to check or swap tapes, people were busy and often didn’t take the time,” explains James Hunter-Paterson, Network Architect for Paul Smith. “As for transporting the tapes to secure locations, we in IT didn’t always know where those tapes ended up—sometimes in the back seat of an employee’s car. We clearly needed a cleaner, more accountable way to protect our company’s data.”
Having up-to-date tape backups was critical in the event of a disaster that might destroy or corrupt a particular branch’s computers, but of more immediate concern was the productivity cost of manual backup. Hunter-Paterson estimates that a member of the IT staff lost a day each week to checking on backups, restoring lost files, and chasing down branch staff to change or locate tapes. For their part, branch staff members—mostly salespeople—were pulled away from revenue-producing tasks for about an hour a day to find, load, and swap tapes.
A different but related problem was managing storage on branch server computers. Users at Paul Smith are assigned storage quotas, and they were continually hitting their limits and calling the help desk in a panic. Also, because many of the files being transferred over the Paul Smith wide area network were large design files (up to 1 gigabyte), they could take all night to transmit, slowing overall backup and impeding worker productivity.
Solution
The IT staff at Paul Smith wanted to get rid of tapes in branch offices altogether and initially looked at file-based replication technologies. The problem with this approach was that block-level replications sent entire files across the network after changes were made, which didn’t help the network bandwidth problem.
In mid-2005, Microsoft introduced Windows Server 2003 R2—the second release of the Windows Server 2003 operating system—which builds on the security benefits provided by Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 while providing a suite of new features that improve branch office server computer management. Of particular interest to Paul Smith was the completely rewritten replication engine for the Distributed File System (DFS). DFS Replication provides a robust file replication service that is significantly more scalable and efficient in synchronizing file servers than the DFS predecessor, File Replication Services. DFS Replication uses a new technology—Remote Differential Compression—to transmit only changed portions of files across the network, preserving expensive network bandwidth.
For example, if a user changes only the title of a 3-megabyte slideshow in the Microsoft Office PowerPoint®2003 presentation graphics program, Windows Server 2003 R2 detects that change and sends only the new title, which might take less than a second to replicate over the network. Sending the entire file could take a minute or more. Also, if a network connection or server computer fails during a transmission, Windows Server 2003 R2 intelligently notes the point of failure and resumes the replication at that point rather than starting over.
Paul Smith saw an opportunity to streamline its backup operations and costs using a product that was already part of its solution stack—the operating system. “Windows Server 2003 R2 fits into our environment better than a third-party solution because it’s out-of-the-box Microsoft,” Hunter-Paterson says. “The Remote Differential Compression feature was of huge interest to us because of the savings in network bandwidth.”
Paul Smith deployed Windows Server 2003 R2 on nine server computers, three in London and the rest in regional offices. The six servers that were already running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition were upgraded to Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, and the three servers that were already running Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition were upgraded to Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition. Windows Server 2003 is the foundation of Microsoft Windows Server System™ integrated server software.
The company uses Windows Server 2003 R2 to consolidate the safeguarding of remote servers at its Nottingham headquarters, where the IT staff is located. As soon as someone in a branch office closes a file, Windows Server 2003 R2 detects whether the file has changed. If it has, Paul Smith uses the Remote Differential Compression feature to send only the changed portions to a backup server computer in Nottingham. Branch office files are thus being safeguarded throughout the day, rather than only once at day’s end. Then, with the Volume Shadow Copy Service feature of Windows Server 2003 R2, the company backs up all files on tape each night.
Benefits
By deploying Windows Server 2003 R2, Paul Smith has been able to boost both IT and branch office staff productivity by relieving workers of daily backup-related chores. Remote Differential Compression has streamlined network traffic up to 50 percent, which reduces telecommunications costs and improves worker productivity. The new operating system has allowed the company to eliminate tapes and tape drives in branch offices, saving thousands of dollars per year.
One Day a Week in Restored IT Productivity
Taking advantage of Remote Differential Compression has made operations at Paul Smith far more efficient by eliminating branch office tapes and the need to administer them. “I estimate that Windows Server 2003 R2 has saved a member of our IT staff a day a week in checking backups, restoring files, and chasing down people for tapes,” Hunter-Paterson says. “This is a savings of approximately $6,000 a year. It’s always a benefit to us if we can take people off operational issues and focus them on solving end-user problems, which makes our business more efficient.”
Hunter-Paterson says the savings in branch office staff time have been even higher. “Having Windows Server 2003 R2 take care of branch office backups is saving one staff member in each office an hour a day, time that used to be spent changing and hunting down tapes. This labor savings amounts to $20,280 a year companywide.”
Another productivity-boosting technology in Windows Server 2003 R2 within DFS is the DFS Namespace, which allows administrators to group shared folders located on different server computers and present them to users as a virtual tree of folders known as a namespace. Because shared folders at Paul Smith are hosted on server computers that are located all over the world, users had to navigate a complicated company directory structure to locate files. DFS Namespace creates a virtual view of shared file folders so that server location becomes irrelevant. “DFS Namespace gives our users a simpler network interface so they don’t need to know where the server is located,” Hunter-Paterson says. “This results in higher worker productivity and fewer calls to our help desk.”
Fifty Percent Network Bandwidth Savings
Paul Smith uses another Windows Server 2003 R2 feature, called the DFS Health Report, to receive detailed error messages about the state of replication. “This report provides a running total of how much bandwidth we’ve saved by using Remote Differential Compression versus traditional file copying,” Hunter-Paterson says. “In some cases we’ve saved hundreds of gigabytes in network traffic in just a few weeks. On some servers we’re using 50 percent less bandwidth. This allows us to refocus expensive T1 lines on other applications such as Voice over IP [Internet Protocol] and to delay bandwidth upgrades.”
Paul Smith also uses replication schedules in Windows Server 2003 R2 to throttle, or direct, replication to occur at specific times. At night, the IT staff allocates maximum bandwidth to DFS Replication, but during the workday they allocate most bandwidth to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). “Windows Server 2003 R2 has given us the ability to tune our network to changing business needs,” Hunter-Paterson says. “Using replication technologies, we’ve been able to minimize the amount of bandwidth needed to maximize file availability. Files are there immediately when users need them.”
$12,000 a Year in Tape Savings
By centralizing backup operations in the data center, Paul Smith has been able to eliminate backup software and hardware in the branch offices—no more Backup Exec software to maintain in branches, 100 fewer tape cartridges each year, and the elimination of $1,000 tape drives in each branch. “Companywide, Windows Server 2003 R2 is saving us more than $12,000 a year in tape media alone,” Hunter-Paterson says.
Higher Branch Office Server Uptime
In the event of a branch office server computer failure, Paul Smith has all the data from that server stored on a server in Nottingham, thanks to continuous replication. “Because our file system now features virtual folders using DFS Namespace, if we lose a branch office server, users are automatically redirected to the appropriate server at the head office containing the needed file,” Hunter-Paterson says. “The process is transparent to users. Before, that office would have been out of commission until we could recover the server.”
Better, Faster Design Collaboration
Instant availability of needed files yields higher productivity for expensive clothing designers in Paul Smith design centers around the world. They frequently trade design ideas among one another and with marketing and production staff. Often these files are up to 1 gigabyte in size and take hours to move across the wide area network. “Large graphics files are traded back and forth many times and saved each time,” Hunter-Paterson says. “With Windows Server 2003 R2, only the changes to the files are sent over the network, which cuts transmission time for some files from eight hours to eight seconds. You can imagine how this boosts collaboration in an interactive design process.”
Better Storage Management
Yet another feature in Windows Server 2003 R2, File Server Resource Manager (FSRM), tells Paul Smith how much storage space it has on its branch server computers. Previously, users would use up their disk quota and call the help desk. Now, individual user storage can be configured so that when a user hits a certain threshold (say, 60 percent of his or her quota) FSRM will send an e-mail warning that includes a summary of the stored files by type, size, and date.
“File Server Resource Manager helps the IT staff empower users to manage their storage proactively,” Hunter-Paterson says. “The result is fewer emergency calls and lower storage costs for Paul Smith.”
Windows Server 2003
The Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family helps organizations do more with less. Now you can: Run your IT infrastructure more efficiently; Build better applications faster; Deliver the best infrastructure for enhancing user productivity. And you can do all this faster, more securely, and at lower cost.
For more information about Windows Server 2003, please visit: