Case Study: Helix Energy Solutions achieves global SharePoint replication and disaster recovery with AvePoint DocAve Replicator

Helix Energy Solutions Replicates Data And Content To Geo-Distributed SharePoint Farms & Sea Vessels With DocAve®

Helix Energy Solutions Group, a Houston-based oil & gas services company with about 1,100 global users and SharePoint deployments on shore and aboard four ships, faced a major availability challenge after Hurricane Ike knocked out its Houston farm and brought down the company’s SharePoint environment. With 1.2 TB of mission‑critical content spread across U.S. and U.K. farms and the need to deliver up-to-date safety and equipment documentation to vessels over constrained satellite links, Helix required full‑fidelity, geo‑distributed replication and bandwidth control to avoid future business disruption.

Helix deployed AvePoint’s DocAve Replicator, adding dedicated DocAve servers and configuring real‑time, two‑way replication between Houston and Aberdeen plus synchronized updates to each ship; AvePoint provided a custom throttle‑control patch for satellite links. The result: 1.2 TB of SharePoint data kept in sync across farms and vessels, a viable disaster‑recovery failover, timely delivery of regulatory and safety documents to ships (eliminating fax/helicopter transfers), and controlled satellite bandwidth usage.

Helix Energy Solutions

Miles Keller

SharePoint Administrator/Developer, Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc