Business Overview
A major US-based airline, with assets of $66.5B and revenue of about $30B in 2021.
- The Airline has large-scale IT operations and a large volume of data, including large databases that require Disaster Recovery (DR) capability.
- The Airline needed database provider Teradata to improve the performance of the DR system to conform to the SLA.
Technical Challenge
The Airline needed to move terabytes of information from its databases to its DR system within the SLA window of 24 hours—the system was requiring as much as 48 hours to complete.
- One technical challenge was the large volume of data to backup
- A large number of tables subject to backup was originally specified as 13,000, but later was increased to 16,000
- The many tables would require time-consuming scripting effort to bring all tables into DR
Solution
- Installed the latest version of Data Mover to use its Incremental Refresh technology to move any tables changed in the last 24 hours
- Created a “Changed Data Capture” script that determines what tables have changed, reducing data for backup by 60%
- Created scripts to generate metadata-driven DM jobs for the job scheduling system
- Scripts identify updated tables that are candidates for complete replacement
Results
The team’s innovative solution protects the company’s data with a DR system that can grow with the data
- The updated DR process now runs daily within 9-12 hours to capture all changes—one quarter of the original time and half the time of the SLA window
- The updated process easily accommodated many more tables than originally specified, meaning that the new tool can accommodate future growth in DR volume
- The automation saved many man hours of development effort
- The project completed ahead of schedule, requiring half the effort originally allocated, saving project costs
Jeff Thomas is the marketing and communications leader at Alliance of Professionals & Consultants Inc. As a thought leader in communications for B2B and B2C businesses, Jeff follows market trends in the recruiting and managed services sectors of the IT, Engineering, and other highly skilled talent industries.
