Veeam Software,
the leader in Backup solutions that deliver Cloud Data Management,
today announced that British Columbia's Forest Practices Board, an
independent, public watchdog for sound forest and range practices, has
chosen Veeam Availability Suite to
replace its current legacy backup system. The Forest Practices Board
opted to upgrade its unreliable and outdated system and implement Veeam
with NetApp ONTAP along with tape-based backups in Amazon S3 and Amazon
Glacier to transform its business continuity and disaster recovery
strategy.
Overseeing
Canada's western and most biologically diverse province where forests
account for 24.3 million hectares, the Forest Practices Board was
established by the government in 1995 to conduct periodic audits of
forest practices, investigate complaints and report results to the
public and government. It completes up to 10 audits per year, capturing
data on tablets and sending it back via secure network connections to
the headquarters in Victoria where it could be compared with legacy
information. The organization experienced issues when data was lost
during the transfer process, resulting in incomplete or inaccurate
analyses.
[ Watch the video interview with Veeam CEO Ratmir Timashev at VMworld 2019 ]
"We
can't risk losing field data," said Tim Slater, Manager of Corporate
Services and Information Systems at Forest Practices Board. "Lost data
means staff and contractors making a second trip to the field, requiring
them to rent a helicopter again. The cost could double to tens of
thousands of dollars. Our organization is government-funded, so we are
very aware of every cost."
In
addition, the Forest Practices Board faced issues recovering legacy
data as its system was unreliable, leaving only a 50% chance it could be
used due to corruption or it couldn't be restored in its full form. "We
found that our legacy backup wasn't designed for virtualization and
didn't integrate with NetApp ONTAP. Configuring the legacy backup
solution with NetApp SnapVault and NetApp SnapMirror was cumbersome and
the replication never worked. As a consequence, our business continuity
and disaster recovery readiness were on the line," said Slater.
The
Forest Practices Board selected Veeam Availability Suite in part due to
its direct integration with NetApp ONTAP which eliminated many of the
issues with the legacy system. Now, it backs up 69 virtual machines with
9TB of data from NetApp FA2650 Storage Snapshots every hour and
replicates them to an off-premise DR site every four hours. Recovery
time objectives decreased dramatically to mere minutes and the group can
finally set recovery point objectives.
Also,
the Forest Practices Board archives secondary tape-based backups in
Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier with Veeam's Virtual Tape Library (VTL)
integration. This practice, along with the NetApp and Veeam integration,
saves the Board 12 to 15 hours a week. "Veeam has been backing up our
data to tape for years, so now Veeam is backing up our virtual tape
library to Amazon S3 and Glacier for long-term storage," Slater said.
"It's an infinitely scalable, cost-effective solution that will help us
ensure our data is available forever."
According to the 2019 Veeam Cloud Data Management Report,
application downtime costs organizations a total of $20.1 million
globally in lost revenue and productivity each year. "Data availability
brings significant business benefits in terms of brand reputation and
customer confidence," said Paul Strelzick, Senior Vice President of
Americas at Veeam. "With proper cloud data management, the Forest
Practices Board is assured that its reports are fully available on its
website to encourage education, communication and dialogue about forest
practices and conservation. It's our pleasure to assist the organization
in its mission and eliminate data challenges that might impede its
work."
"The
best way to conserve forests is to apply sustainable forest management
practices," Slater said. "The best way to apply sustainable forest
management practices is to have access to current and historical data.
Veeam, NetApp ONTAP, Amazon S3 and Glacier help us to optimize data
management across our hybrid cloud environment."
For more information and the full success story, visit https://www.veeam.com/success-stories/veeam-customer-story-bc-forest-practice-board.html.