Fanela Ltd., based in Leicestershire, is leading supplier of textiles and apparel with over 27 years of experience in the printed, embroidered and transferred garments industry.

Fanela had been reviewing their data storage as the business continually accumulates large data files due the need to keep detailed design documents for their clients, so Supreme Systems suggested to them that De-Duplication could provide an instant benefit, both reducing the cost of their monthly costs for backup and business continuity but would also reduce recovery times in the event of a disaster recovery situation.

The Supreme Team commenced with the first stages of the project by auditing Fanela’s network to ensure the compatibility of the de-duplication process with existing software and the IT infrastructure as a whole.

After the initial assessments were complete, we commenced with the application of de-duplication on the file server. Once this took effect, the team rebooted the file server to apply the changes. We performed this action after hours, so there was no disruption caused to the staff and the fundamental operations of Fanela Ltd.

The next stage involved enabling the de-duplication data volume and then proceed to review the file storage to identify de-duplicated data and from this we were able to define the amount of storage that had been recovered and report this back to Fanela Ltd.

Finally, the team ran checks on the now “cleaned” file server to ensure no data was missing and key contacts at the business likewise made their own checks to ensure they were also happy that everything they needed was still available.

The de-duplicated data was then compressed and archived to free storage. The on-going de-duplication process will now automatically assess and check for duplicate files ensuring Fanela’s data storage is used as efficiently as possible and keeping backup costs to a minimum.

The implementation of de-duplication was a success with no setbacks and no disruption to the staff at Fanela Ltd.

Damian Jefferson, Head of Operations at Fanela Ltd., said of the project: “To be quite honest, after requesting the project to be undertaken, I didn’t even know the project had been started and completed.  It was so seamless and without interruption. A really quick efficient service and not only does it increase our storage space it saves us a few pounds each month too”.