Case Study: National Gas and Convenience Store Chain achieves improved SQL Server performance and 100% backup success with Dell EMC VNX and Data Domain

National Gas and Convenience Store Chain - Customer Case Study

National Gas and Convenience Store Chain, a rapidly growing mid‑Atlantic retailer with hundreds of stores, was struggling with exponential data growth (about 15 TB active), SQL VM I/O timeouts, and backup windows exceeding 24 hours with only ~80% success using Symantec PureDisk. To address performance, consolidation and backup reliability the chain selected Dell EMC solutions including VNX unified storage with FAST Suite and Flash, EMC Data Domain with DD Boost, and VMware integration.

Dell EMC implemented a FLASH‑first VNX environment (1 TB Flash in a 15 TB pool) with automated tiering, Unisphere management and Data Domain at primary and DR sites plus DD Boost. The deployment eliminated SQL I/O timeouts, simplified VM provisioning, reduced backup windows by more than 50%, improved backup success to essentially 99–100%, and—through Data Domain deduplication—reduced 657 TB of backup data to about 44 TB, enabling 90‑day retention and lowering CapEx/OpEx while eliminating Symantec-related fees.