Case Study: Formica Group achieves major OpEx reduction and performance gains with StarWind Software's HCA & VTL

Formica UK & Ireland sees a considerable OpEx reduction and performance increase with its backup strategy by switching to StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) and Virtual Tape Library (VTL)

Formica UK & Ireland, a subsidiary of the global Formica Group, was running an aged, oversized on‑premises IT environment as it shifted toward cloud services. With systems operating at about one‑third capacity, rising maintenance and licensing costs and an urgent need to refine its backup and data‑protection strategy, the company set out to right‑size its infrastructure and reduce OpEx.

Following a 12‑month vendor evaluation, Formica deployed StarWind HyperConverged Appliance (HCA) and Virtual Tape Library (VTL), integrated with VMware and cloud services and supported by StarWind ProActive. The all‑flash, modular solution cut compute nodes from 60+ to eight, reduced scheduled job runtimes by 57%, improved SQL performance by 30%, lowered licensing, power and maintenance costs, delivered 3‑2‑1 data protection with global VTL deployment, and enabled offloading long‑term backups to cold cloud storage without impacting recoverability.

Formica Group