Nutrition Research On The Safe Side – A SEP Success Story

“We needed a reliable backup solution to support a varied and heterogeneous IT landscape. SEP sesam is one of the few products that can support to our entire server environment.”

The German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbrücke (DIFE) specialises in experimental and applied research in the field of nutrition and health. Their mission is to explore the molecular causes of food-related diseases and develop new strategies for prevention and treatment for food-borne illnesses.

DIFE conducts research in many areas including pharmacology, experimental diabetology, clinical nutrition, molecular epidemiology, molecular genetics, fat cell development, physiology of energy metabolism, and psychophysiology of food perception.

““SEP sesam is one of the few products that can support our entire server environment which contains Novell Groupware and Novell file server data.”

Reliability is Key

The German Institute of Human Nutrition needed a reliable solution for data backup, replication and automation. The DIFE only has a small window of time to perform regular backups and sought a solution that could perform under these constraints.

“We produce a huge amount of data. The increased values of our research data requires and extremely reliable backup solution,” explained Lux. “As part of the research activity, very complex investigations are often performed. The survey of the emerging research data is often very costly and time consuming,” recalls Lux. “A reliable backup solution is essential for our company. Any number of varying events could jeopardize our servers. Such instances can include a defect in the power supply, cybercrime, theft, unintentional deletion of data, and computer viruses.”

The Solution

The Institution had tested and reviewed several backup vendors until araneaNet, an external service provider and SEP partner, recommended SEP as a backup solution. After extensive testing, they recognized the benefits SEP sesam provides and the Institute began planning for implementation.

The installation and configuration process was accomplished by araneaNet and the Institute’s IT staff was involved actively in all processes and phases.

“SEP sesam meets all of our company requirements,” Lux explained. “All recovery jobs run successfully now. Since implementation of SEP sesam, there hasn’t been a single failure of a backup job. We are very content.”

Made For Emergencies

The German Institute of Human Nutrition now relies fully on SEP sesam for all backup and restore needs.

In the past, data had been accidentally deleted from time to time. Since the SEP sesam implementation, this is no longer a concern.

“The biggest nightmare for me is the event of a disaster, such as lightning, fire, or water damage in the server room that would destroy critical server data. If the backups were to fail, that would be a disaster for our Institute. Years of research data would be lost forever,” explained Lux. “Due to our backup strategy, the SEP sesam software and externalization of the backup tapes at a different location eliminate the risk of data loss.”

In the future the German Institute of Human Nutrition plans a project for long-term preservation of research data with SEP sesam.

DIFE Technology dataSEP sesam: Security Across the Enterprise