Leading Insurance Provider Saves Money and Improves Performance with Quantum DXi Systems

Prévifrance Mutuelle, a leading insurance services provider in France, recently launched a new initiative to upgrade their backup and disaster recovery processes. But when they tried to expand their existing storage systems by a global provider, they saw their costs skyrocket. They needed a more cost-effective solution and chose Quantum’s DXi storage solutions for their protected data storage needs. In addition to being cost effective, their new Quantum DXi appliances are faster, work seamlessly with their Veeam software, and provide trouble-free operation.  

With more than 75 years of business experience, Prévifrance Mutuelle is one of the leading providers of comprehensive insurance services for businesses and individuals in France, supplying nearly 350,000 policyholders with a broad range of protection plans covering health, welfare, auto, home, and life. As a licensed, mutual company, Prévifrance holds itself to the most stringent security standards, so protecting its rapidly growing data is one of the most important tasks in the organization. And as a mutual company, in which the policyholders are also the owners, providing that protection at the lowest cost is also a critical part of its mission.

Expansion and Upgrade Costs Are Too High

“We used an EMC Data Domain appliance for backup in our Toulouse office, but when we made plans to fully execute our strategy to replace our long-term tape storage with multiple levels of disk retention, we hit a huge problem—dramatically higher costs,” Magnanon says. “When we tried to upgrade our Data Domain appliance by adding more capacity, we were shocked. The quote to upgrade the existing system was substantially higher than that cost to purchase a new, larger appliance. We couldn’t get any relief, so we decided to look for alternatives.”

Search Focuses on a More Economical, Long-Term Solution

Prévifrance had three priorities when it evaluated alternatives. The new system had to work with the company’s existing Veeam software, had to support effective replication, and had to match the backup and recovery performance of the existing appliances. It also had to help the company reduce costs now and provide a future path to growth that was economical and predictable. And finally, the new product had to have local service and support resources that understood the company’s goals and would work with Prévifrance to achieve them.

Selection Process Settles on Quantum DXi

“We quickly narrowed the competitors to two, tested them both extensively, looked at references, and made the decision to switch to Quantum DXi appliances. It was an easy decision,” says Magnanon. “The initial acquisition costs were much lower, there is an economical upgrade path, and Quantum guaranteed maintenance costs through a full five years.”

The DXi4700 deduplication appliances were installed in each of the two offices. Daily incremental backups of databases, office files, and messaging are now written to each local system. Veeam regularly creates synthetic full backup images, and the files are replicated between sites. This combination provides short-term protection with fast recovery, as well as long-term retention in different sites as part of the Company’s disaster protection planning.

Faster Performance, Lower Costs, Great Service

“We have been delighted with our experience with Quantum and DXi,” Magnanon says. “The backup, restore, and replication performance are all faster than our old system, our costs are much lower, and we have a clear, economical path for future upgrades—in fact we have already expanded one unit by 20 TB and the upgrade was easy. Also important for us, compatibility with all the Veeam features, including replication management and synthetic full backups, has been perfect.”  

Quantum facilitated installation and configuration of the systems, and provided strong, local support throughout the operation. “The France-based team did everything we needed during the installation and setup, they have responded quickly to any questions, and the performance of the DXi system has been trouble-free since day one. We are pleased that we made the switch and consider ourselves a long-term partner with Quantum.”