Andra

About The Andra

The National Agency for Radioactive Waste Management (ANDRA) is responsible for the long-term management of radioactive waste produced in France. Public Industrial and Commercial Establishment (EPIC), theAndra puts its expertise and know-how at the service of the State to find, implement and guarantee safe management solutions for all French radioactive waste in order to protect present and future generations from the risks inherent in this waste. TheAndra is present at several sites in France, in the English Channel, the Meuse, Haute-Marne, Aube and Châtenay-Malabry where its headquarters is located and has to date about eight hundred employees.

The choice of Bacula

In the context of the renewal of a computing cluster, the service provider selected by theAndra had chosen the solution Bacula to back up data stored on a “luster” file system. We have known téïcée more than ten years ago ”, commented Bernard Vialay, in charge of defining the calculation means at theAndra, « the claimant at the time was having difficulty stabilizing his operations. Already at that time, téïcée had expertise on the tool and allowed the production of the backup component of this cluster. »
Over time, theAndra has used the services of téïcée to perform both configuration changes and backup-related process optimizations. téïcée has thus, for example, set up an automated system for distributing backups on the various nodes freed for processing data security tasks.

« We needed a provider who was able to intervene quickly and efficiently »

« Following the observations we made on the operation of outsourcing of calculation means, theAndra took the decision to reorganize the processes and in particular to separate the themes at stake. A very wide variety of technologies is used on the means of calculation and finding a single provider who can take care of all aspects with equal quality is too complicated ” continues Bernard Vialay.
« A computer scientist who works at theAndra has a strong experience in a very large number of fields due to the tools and techniques we need ” adds Bernard Vialay. “ We therefore needed a service provider who was able to intervene on our backup solution Bacula in a fast and efficient way while taking into account the existing. Ultimately, the choice of téïcée as an expert speaker on the solution Bacula was natural “he points out.

« téïcée has always been present even when our requests exceeded the contractual framework imposed »

« téïcée for more than ten years, we have been supporting us in maintaining our solution in good working order Bacula and has always been there when necessary, including when our requests exceeded the contractual framework imposed on them. »
« What we like about téïcée, and which we also find at Bacula SystemsBut that's the pro-active attitude. téïcée informs our manager of anomalies or malfunctions that she notices. It is very nice to know that people are studying our situation and proposing changes to improve the functioning of our backups. »
From a technical point of view, theAndra, which originally used the Community version of Bacula (https://www.bacula.org), decided to migrate to the Bacula Enterprise solution (https://www.baculasystems.com) which, in addition to the important functional aspects it proposes, offers a support contract accompanied by updates.

A library, a virtual machine and Bacula Enterprise

Accompanied by téïcée and Bacula Systems, « […] it was the assurance of having an operational solution that motivated theAndra in his choice. ” says Bernard Vialay. Currently, the backups implemented atAndra are deposited on an LTO tape library, equipped with four LTO-7 readers, that Bacula uses simultaneously delivering a backup throughput of 1GB/s.

Innovative features could be used in the future

When asked about possible changes in the use of Bacula at theAndraBernard Vialay said that he “[…] is studying the advantages of the Bare Metal Recovery module, which would make the solution more secure and facilitate the operations to be carried out as part of a Business Recovery Plan (PRA).”