In our recent blog post on Veeam V7 Backup and Replication we discussed 12 disruptive innovations offered by Veeam Backup Version 7. Recently, we implemented this solution ourselves. Read on to find out how and why.
The challenge we faced
Our existing backup infrastructure did not have the adequate capacity to support the backup of our virtual servers. The legacy tool we were using required a substantial investment in new backup storage because it didn’t deduplicate and compress data in backups. We needed modern data protection for our virtual environment in order to meet our RPO and RTO goals.
There were three main issues we faced:
- Did not have backup of all virtual servers (some)
- If we lost a non-backed up server we would be in trouble
- Our legacy tool required a significant investment to upgrade
Softchoice’s IT team completed nightly backups to ensure the most critical applications (like Outlook) were taken care of. However, with file servers, exchange servers and virtual machines, backing all of them up at the same time would slow down both the network and the backup process, with multiple jobs running concurrently. In turn, Softchoice depended on the manufacturer for all support and troubleshooting. Since data loss is an hourly expense, we needed a solution the IT team could use to troubleshoot and solve problems without waiting for a help ticket or support person.
Why we chose Veeam
Veeam offered the capacity we needed for hardware resources and we had available storage to reuse for this purpose. We liked the backup, performance and ease of management offered by Veeam Backup and Replication. This solution did not replace our existing platform, it complemented it.
Lester Moniz, Manager of Infrastructure for Softchoice, explains “Our legacy backup tool had run out of capacity. We found Veeam easy to implement and use, making it a compelling option. In addition, we found Veeam to be scalable; therefore, it could accommodate our growing virtual environment. Veeam also offers deduplication, compression and incremental backup. Those built-in features dramatically reduce the consumption of our backup storage. The offer we received from Veeam, coupled with being able to use the storage we already had, made sense from a cost perspective.”
Lester is right; the cost to implement Veeam was lower than if we expanded our existing backup solution.
How we implemented it
From planning to implementation the whole process took 3 months. First, we ran proof of concept to prove the case that Veeam Backup and Replication met our virtual server backup needs by leveraging the use of existing storage. Our IT team built out the solution in a test environment, then designed and tested the architecture as a whole. Once the architecture was built, the IT team priced out the solution and planned the implementation. We purchased licensing and maintenance too.
It took 3 months to set up the servers and storage: processors, RAM and disk needed to run this software. In total, our Veeam infrastructure includes:
- One application server
- 6 proxy servers
- 20TB of storage
The IT team found the tool fairly intuitive with only a half day of training required for administration.
The result
Today Softchoice completes nightly backups within the defined backup windows with no impact to users. In case of a disaster, our IT team feels confident our virtual machines are backed up and recoverable. To learn more about the business impact, read Veaam’s Success Story.
Doug Sekus, Director of Business Development for Softchoice, was impressed with the solution and how the benefits trickled down to our customers. “Just like our clients, we have requirements to ensure our own systems are up and available, so we use Veeam to protect our virtualized applications and data,” Sekus said. “For example, Veeam helps us ensure our databases and applications that support customers are always accessible, enabling us to answer clients’ calls every hour of every day. Client calls never go to voicemail, and that’s something we’re proud of.”
If you’re experiencing the same issues we did, check out our Storage TechCheck. No matter what tool you’re using, we have dedicated Softchoice experts covering a wide variety of storage vendors that will assess your storage environment and make reccomendations to suit the unique demands of your business.
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