Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Streamlines Data Backup with EMC's Avamar and VMware Solutions

In the midst of a major property expansion from 650 to nearly 1,600 guest rooms, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, a premier entertainment resort in Las Vegas, implemented EMC's Avamar deduplication backup software and VMware virtualization solutions to centralize and streamline data backup operations. The resort's critical systems, such as 140 point-of-sale (POS) terminals, required continued access to maintain top-flight guest services. The old tape backup system made this challenging due to growing backup windows and tape failures. To address these issues, Hard Rock replaced its Symantec NetBackup system with EMC Avamar deduplication backup software. The solution removed redundant data, backed up revenue-generating POS systems and other applications, and consolidated physical servers as 40 virtual machines on EMC CLARiiON networked storage. As a result, backup windows have shrunk from 18-36 hours to 4 hours, and Microsoft Exchange backups decreased from 12 hours to 4-12 minutes. The resort has reduced file and VMware server data by over 97 percent and achieved a faster return on investment with EMC's solutions.

Key Takeaways:

Hard Rock Hotel & Casino implemented EMC's Avamar deduplication backup software and VMware virtualization solutions to streamline data backup operations.
The resort's critical systems, including 140 POS terminals, required continued access to maintain top-flight guest services despite a major property expansion.
The old tape backup system made this challenging due to growing backup windows and tape failures.
The EMC Avamar solution removed redundant data, backed up revenue-generating POS systems and other applications, and consolidated physical servers as 40 virtual machines on EMC CLARiiON networked storage.
Backup windows have shrunk from 18-36 hours to 4 hours, and Microsoft Exchange backups decreased from 12 hours to 4-12 minutes.
The resort has reduced file and VMware server data by over 97 percent.
The EMC solutions enabled Hard Rock to keep pace with expansion and support of its current systems without significantly expanding its hardware footprint or adding IT personnel.

Statistics:

The resort reduced file and VMware server data by over 97 percent.
Backup windows have shrunk from 18-36 hours to 4 hours.
Microsoft Exchange backups decreased from 12 hours to 4-12 minutes.
The resort has consolidated physical servers into 40 virtual machines on EMC CLARiiON networked storage.

Sources:

EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) press release, date not specified
Quote from Rob Kosier, IT Director, Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Information about EMC's products and services at www.EMC.com