VERITAS Software Corporation (Nasdaq: VRTS) today announced that QIAGEN, a leading international life sciences supplier, is using VERITAS software for data protection across its North American operation. Using VERITAS software and consulting services, the company has increased IT operational efficiencies and lowered total cost of ownership (TCO) by 25 percent.

QIAGEN is the world’s leading provider of enabling technologies for separating and purifying nucleic acids and proteins, delivering its products to top biotechnology, pharmaceutical and government research organizations including Novartis, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Aventis, Bayer, Affymetrix and the National Institutes of Health. Netherlands-based QIAGEN employs 1,400 across 12 countries and has an extended global distribution network that serves customers in more than 42 countries. The company has data centers in Germany and the United States, which support the complex IT requirements of the development-intensive life sciences organization.

QIAGEN selected VERITAS Volume Manager and VERITAS NetBackup™ software for standardized data protection across its North American operation. Using VERITAS software, QIAGEN has migrated from a distributed backup-and-restore facility to a centralized storage environment, resulting in improved operational efficiency and reduced costs.

“VERITAS has helped us improve IT operational efficiencies and lower TCO by an estimated 25 percent by giving us the ability to manage our storage environment on one large tape library versus multiple tape libraries,” said Stephan Huetzen, global IT director, QIAGEN Inc. “The VERITAS software paid for itself in less than 36 months.”

Building on the success of VERITAS software in its data center, QIAGEN also enlisted the help of VERITAS’ Business Continuity Management Consulting Practice to help pinpoint both short- and long-term business continuity requirements. The team helped QIAGEN define its recovery requirements and develop and implement an effective IT recovery strategy. Working with VERITAS Consulting, QIAGEN was able to extend its backup cycle from one week to two weeks.

“The disaster recovery recommendations—architecturally and operationally—enabled our small IT staff to focus on building value-added applications and meeting new business requirements for our customers, rather than spending time on developing a disaster recovery solution,” said Huetzen.

“VERITAS Consulting truly served as a trusted advisor,” added Huetzen. “The objectivity of the VERITAS consultants, including their ability to recommend a business continuity management infrastructure based on our heterogeneous hardware and software environments, was pivotal in helping establish a relationship built on trust.”

VERITAS Business Continuity Management Consulting Practice

VERITAS’ Business Continuity Management Consultants work with customers to architect and implement comprehensive disaster recovery solutions. VERITAS Consultants also provide the breadth and depth of expertise many organizations need to structure program governance and define a business continuity strategy that can be executed, validated and counted upon to: reduce frequency and duration of downtime, reduce lost revenue, reduce cost exposure due to missed service level agreements or compliance with regulatory requirement and, protect customer relationships and consumer confidence.

VERITAS provides consulting services through four core consulting practices: Business Continuity Management, Application Service Management, Storage Management and Utility Computing.