Case Study: Queen’s University School of Computing achieves future-proof, flexible, cost-effective backup and recovery with Bacula Systems

Queen’s University School of Computing - Customer Case Study

Queen’s University School of Computing needed to replace a more than ten‑year‑old LTO‑4 tape system and legacy backup software with a future‑proof solution that could handle a highly heterogeneous environment (Solaris, Linux, legacy hardware, IoT platforms) and many obscure data types, while offering reasonable, predictable licensing. After evaluating options, the school chose Bacula Systems and its Bacula Enterprise offering for its open‑source roots, flexible licensing (no data‑volume charges), and responsive engineering support.

Bacula Systems ran a technical trial in late 2019, supplied remote training, BWeb access, and custom‑compiled binaries to support niche platforms, and worked closely with Queen’s IT during deployment. The result is a production Bacula Enterprise rollout that meets performance expectations (with current limits attributed to the network), delivered an 80% reduction in time for traversing/replicating a machine with hundreds of millions of small files, and provided substantial cost savings versus competitors (other quotes were two to ten times higher); Queen’s plans to use Bacula for at least 10 years.

Queen’s University School of Computing

Ben Hall

Senior Business Analyst