The Organ and Tissue Authority Reduces Time to Restore Microsoft® SharePoint® Data from Multiple Days to Less than 30 Minutes with DocAve®
Success Highlights
Customer Location Canberra, Australia
Industry Health Services
Platform SharePoint 2010
Critical Needs
- Backup of SharePoint data according to organisational needs and swift restoration of SharePoint data
- Ability to duplicate permissions for SharePoint users to save time while managing environment
- Accurate, automated reports on SharePoint usage
The Challenge
The Authority implemented Microsoft SharePoint as a collaboration platform for several of its major initiatives. The Authority used the platform to set up communities which could be accessed by both employees as well as external, high profile professionals involved with the organisation’s activities. The organisation had a staff less than 30, but the SharePoint environment was accessed by approximately 350 related individuals in total.
The initiative that SharePoint was used to help carry out was a very important one to the Authority, and it was critical that data be protected and restored swiftly if required. Since SharePoint’s native abilities would not allow granular restores of data, the Authority’s administrators would need to contact the Authority’s service provider to perform a full database restore from a time before the site or content was lost. This process could take days and might potentially cause the Authority to lose new data created after the incident.
The administrators also found that SharePoint’s administration capabilities were not always easy to use. “We wanted to be able to easily to bring a SharePoint community site back much quicker if something went wrong,” said Kim Cassell, the Authority’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO). “We also found the platform’s administration capabilities to be challenging, and with only two employees working on SharePoint among many other responsibilities, we don’t often have the time to sit and play with it.”
Since the Authority partnered with a consultancy to help with its SharePoint implementation, the Authority asked the consultancy to recommend any necessary third-party software solutions that could enhance its SharePoint management capabilities. “We needed the ability to bring back communities quickly if necessary and also needed more flexibility controlling user access,” said Cassell.
Manager of ICT Help Desk, the Organ and Tissue Authority
The AvePoint Solution
Based on its previous experiences, the consultancy recommended the Authority implement AvePoint’s DocAve Software Platform – the enterprise-class management platform for SharePoint governance. In order to satisfy the Authority’s most immediate needs, the consultancy recommended they utilise the following three products from the fully integrated platform: DocAve Backup and Restore, DocAve Administrator, and DocAve Report Center.
DocAve Backup and Restore addresses the need for a fast, flexible, and intelligent backup solution. DocAve provides full-fidelity backup and recovery, from an individual content item to an entire SharePoint environment and all of its farm-level components. With DocAve, the Authority was able to set a backup plan that met its specific needs, which included full backups on weekends and incremental backups on week nights. Additionally, when content needed to be restored, the administrators were able to do it in less than 30 minutes while retaining the data’s full fidelity. “DocAve is working well for us,” said the Terry Tremethick, the Authority’s Manager of ICT Help Desk. “By protecting our SharePoint data and providing us with reports that give us details on each backup job, DocAve gives us assurance and peace of mind.”
DocAve Administrator simplifies the implementation and enforcement of SharePoint access and content provisioning governance policies. With DocAve, the administrators were able to duplicate permissions for different types of users in the Authority’s environment, rather than having to set all permissions manually, which could take at least 15 minutes for each user. “DocAve allows me to focus on other tasks while it easily duplicates permissions for users,” said Tremethick.
DocAve Report Center presents administrators, business stakeholders, and content owners a comprehensive understanding of their SharePoint platform or site's usage, topology, performance, and storage trends while generating customisable reports and alerts. The Authority’s administrators and content owners were especially interested in DocAve’s ability to generate usage reports, which helped users determine how successful their efforts were on the platform. “DocAve gives a more accurate gauge of how many users are visiting sites as it is able to count unique users, which SharePoint cannot do,” said Tremethick. “Our users appreciate this as it gives them a realistic view of whether or not the work they are doing is being seen and, therefore, paying off.”
The Road Ahead
By implementing DocAve from the start of its SharePoint deployment, the Authority was able to ensure that its data was protected according to organisational needs and save time while managing its environment and users. Throughout its use of DocAve, the Authority could always rely on AvePoint’s live, global 24/7 technical support team to assist with any challenges encountered. “AvePoint’s technical support team is very persistent,” said Tremethick. “They always follow up and work until the problem is solved.”
