Roger Dore, Manager, Technical Services and Operations, Steelcase

Windows Azure Customer Solution Case Study

Office Furniture Supplier Reduces Storage Costs, Restore Times with Cloud-Integrated Solution

“By using StorSimple and Windows Azure storage service, Steelcase has been able to reduce SAN storage costs by 46 percent.” Roger Dore, Manager, Technical Services and Operations, Steelcase

Steelcase, a Fortune 1000 company, is one of the world’s leading suppliers of workplace products, furnishings, and services. With annual revenues of US$2.87 billion and approximately 10,000 employees at offices around the world, the company needed an effective new solution to replace its problematic backup and disaster recovery systems. Steelcase opted for a hybrid cloud storage solution featuring StorSimple cloud-integrated storage and Windows Azure, the Microsoft cloud services development, hosting, and management environment. As a result, Steelcase reduced SAN storage and data protection costs by nearly 50 percent, slashed backup and restore times by 75 percent, and implemented a tested disaster recovery plan.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published August 2013 Business Needs solution dramatically reduces storage process 75 percent more quickly than area network (SAN) costs by before implementing the StorSimple With more than 10,000 employees and solution. offices located around the world, automatically offloading volumes of Michigan-based Steelcase has relied on colder archival data and backups. Restore times reduced by 87 percent. Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 for Individual database restore times have been reduced by 87 percent. document workflows and information Steelcase also moved file shares to the sharing. StorSimple system to gain automated Administrative overhead and SAN data protection. Not only that, but by storage costs reduced by half. As the company’s SharePoint replicating remote file shares on Administrative overhead of data protection has been trimmed by 50 percent and SAN deployments grew, they became more StorSimple, Steelcase was able to storage costs have fallen by 46 percent. difficult to back up, which put the extend the solution’s automated, disaster recovery capabilities at risk. In cloud-based data protection to all fact, SharePoint Server backups were remote sites around the world. taking 24 to 36 hours to complete. Also, backups often failed and had to be Steelcase appreciates the tight restarted or left incomplete, database integration with SharePoint, including restores took more than two hours to the ability to externalize SharePoint complete, and the IT team estimated BLOB (binary large object) storage that a full SharePoint recovery would from the SharePoint database. The take more than two days. On top of all company is also excited about the of this, software and hardware costs for automated data protection capabilities SharePoint backup systems were that are part of the StorSimple Cloud increasing at an alarming rate. Snapshot backup technology.

The IT team at Steelcase knew that a full The StorSimple system also SharePoint recovery would be a long, deduplicates and compresses arduous process and could include company SharePoint data which extensive data loss. As a result, means the data is smaller and Steelcase began looking for a better, therefore easier—and more cost- less expensive solution for its effective—to store and protect. SharePoint data protection issues. “By using StorSimple and Windows Azure storage service, Steelcase has Solution been able to reduce SAN storage costs Independent of the search for a new by 46 percent,” says Roger Dore, SharePoint backup and recovery Manager of Technical Services and solution, Steelcase had formed a Cloud Operations for Steelcase. Council to investigate ways to use the cloud to streamline operations and reduce rapidly rising storage costs. Benefits After deploying StorSimple and the Steelcase opted for a hybrid cloud hybrid cloud storage solution from storage solution featuring StorSimple Microsoft, Steelcase has benefited in cloud-integrated storage and the the following ways: Windows Azure cloud services platform, which includes automated SharePoint Backup and restore functions are 75 percent faster. Steelcase reports that cloud-based data protection. This SharePoint backup and restore functions

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published August 2013 Rapid return on investment. The total Failover protection. Steelcase now has a In summary, Steelcase found exactly cost of the StorSimple solution was covered working, tested disaster recovery plan for what it was looking for in the hybrid by the amount Steelcase has saved on all its SharePoint data. backup software license renewals alone. cloud storage solution from Microsoft with StorSimple and Windows Azure.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published August 2013