From Commvault to Druva: How Paradise Valley Transformed Its Data Protection

Paradise Valley is a suburb of Phoenix in the State of Arizona. It is Arizona's wealthiest municipality. The town is known for its luxury golf courses, shopping, expensive real estate, and restaurant scene. According to the 2020 census, its population was 12,658.

Paradise Valley, known for its luxury amenities and affluent residents, faced data protection challenges with its existing solution. It needed a robust and reliable system to safeguard its Microsoft 365 data and hybrid workloads, which included VMware, NAS, and SQL, among others. With 150 Microsoft 365 licenses and 32TB of protected data, Paradise Valley sought a secure, easy-to-manage, and cost-effective solution.

Walter Wojno, IT Analyst for the town, played a key role in evaluating potential vendors and selecting the right solution for Paradise Valley’s needs. Previously, Paradise Valley had been using Commvault and relying on cumbersome tape-based backups that required significant resources for daily tasks such as media rotation and vendor interaction. Maintaining the system was a time-consuming and arduous process that strained the town's IT staff.

"Our experience with the Commvault solution made it evident that it had its fair share of shortcomings,” Wojno said. “We encountered challenges with its complexity and lack of user-friendliness, which hindered our ability to efficiently manage data. This led our team to start seeking a change as we recognized the need for a solution offering a more intuitive and streamlined approach to data management."

After evaluating alternatives, including Metallic and Veeam, Paradise Valley recognized Druva’s ability to deliver on the outcomes they needed . The town was impressed by Druva's ability to consolidate and protect all its data in a single solution, eliminating the need for tape-based interventions, and dialing up their security with air-gapped backups. One of the standout features for Paradise Valley was Druva's 100% SaaS-based delivery model, which required no additional hardware or software investment, making it an attractive choice. 

With an initial focus on Microsoft 365 data protection, Paradise Valley made a smooth transition to Druva, taking advantage of its easy implementation and superior customer support. "Switching to Druva was a seamless process. Their team worked closely with us to ensure a smooth transition, and we were up and running in no time. It was refreshing to see a solution that prioritizes user-friendliness and simplifies data management,” Wojno said. 

The success of this migration encouraged the town to expand its data protection efforts to include on-premises systems like VMware, MS-SQL and NAS workloads. Paradise Valley extended its partnership with Druva to protect these hybrid workloads — bringing them under the same intuitive platform as the Microsoft 365 data, and further simplifying management.

Since partnering with Druva, the day-to-day life of Paradise Valley's IT team has been transformed. Daily tasks that used to take hours and involve multiple team members now require only 10 minutes of Walter's time. "Since implementing Druva, we've seen remarkable results. Our data management has become more efficient, and the time required for backup and recovery has significantly decreased. And Druva's intelligent global deduplication features have made a notable difference in our management and cost of operations,” he said.

With Druva's user-friendly dashboards and reports, he can easily monitor completed jobs, address any issues, and gain valuable insights into the overall infrastructure's performance. This streamlined workflow has significantly improved efficiency and reduced the burden on the IT staff, allowing Walter to manage backups almost single-handedly. He had this to say, "Druva's centralized dashboard has been a game-changer for us. It provides a comprehensive view of our data across multiple locations, making it easy to monitor and manage everything in one place. This level of visibility and control was something we were certainly missing with Commvault.”

In addition to the time saved, Paradise Valley has also experienced cost benefits by migrating to Druva's SaaS-based model. The elimination of tape-based processes, along with savings in manpower hours, media expenses, and offsite storage, made the switch to Druva an obvious choice for the town.

"The ease of use and flexibility of Druva has transformed our data management processes. Our team can now focus on strategic initiatives rather than spending countless hours managing backups and recoveries. Druva has truly simplified our workflows and improved productivity," Walter said.

Paradise Valley's journey with Druva began with protecting its Microsoft 365 data and expanded to include the consolidation of hybrid workloads. A smooth onboarding experience, combined with the ease of use and efficiency of Druva's solutions made the transition from cumbersome tape-based backup seamless for the town’s IT team. 

Druva's comprehensive data protection solutions enabled Paradise Valley to overcome the challenges posed by its previous system and improve efficiency, scalability, and cost savings. With Druva, Paradise Valley can confidently protect its critical data and focus on serving its affluent residents and maintaining its reputation as one of Arizona's most esteemed municipalities.