Although the IT group must deal with a changing mix of structured and unstructured data, Schissel's staff realized that no matter what kind of content it is, the lifecycle is the same: create, categorize, store, archive, retrieve. Thinking of the process that way, the IT group can configure tools to back up all the data, but treat different kinds of data differently, depending on how accessible Herbalife needs it to be. For example, Herbalife backed up fulfilled product orders that are several months old, archiving that data to storage servers. Sales videos are also backed up regularly, but they are kept on active servers so they're more accessible.
Simpana also allows Herbalife to manage storage by exception, meaning that if hiccups occur during backup, a report automatically goes to the IT group so someone can investigate what went wrong.
Follow Senior Editor Kim S. Nash on Twitter: @knash99.
Read more about business process management (bpm) in CIO's Business Process Management (BPM) Drilldown.
