Electra Group “considers it done” with Veeam

The Business Challenge

For more than 70 years, the Electra Group has amassed exceptional experience and an unrivaled reputation as a global business leader. From conception to completion, the enterprise draws on multidisciplinary expertise to meet the countless challenges associated with construction, infrastructure, electromechanical contracting, facility operation and maintenance. The full-circle service provided for every project is driven by deep synergies among business operations.

“Business operations rely on data, so it’s our responsibility to protect data and make it available,” said Michael Zeltser, Enterprise Infrastructure Manager for the Electra Group. “If data isn’t protected and available, the business can’t operate as efficiently, making it harder to maintain the company’s reputation for excellent service.”

The Electra Group’s challenge was legacy backup. “It was difficult to manage, and backup and recovery were slow and unreliable,” Zeltser said. “Legacy backup wasn’t scalable either. When data doubled within three years, backups didn’t complete in the time required.”

The Electra Group considered several solutions to replace legacy backup. After mapping the IT infrastructure and analyzing the future trends of the organization, the most suitable solution for the organization of both today and tomorrow, was Veeam. “Veeam provides exactly what we want.” Zeltser said. 

The Veeam solution 

Veeam Backup and Replication provides fast, reliable and scalable backup, replication and recovery of data so the Electra Group can deliver on its pledge to “consider it done.” Zeltser said Veeam is the foundation for the company’s BC and DR strategy.

“Two of the things we like most about Veeam are speed and simplicity,” Zeltser said. “Each time we restore data, we’re able to do so quickly and easily, without a single problem. Fast recovery is a basic requirement for BC and DR. Recovery with legacy backup was a joke.”

Data recovery is nothing to joke about, so Veeam provides several high-speed recovery features. Tal Adler, System Administrator for the Electra Group, said one of his favorites is Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange. It provides instant visibility into Exchange backups, granular recovery of individual items and easy-to-use eDiscovery options, which are particularly helpful when the IT team is asked to restore email data for legal purposes.

“Having the ability to restore emails fast is critical during legal proceedings, so you can understand our disappointment when we tried to restore historical emails after migrating to Microsoft Office 365,” Adler said. “Microsoft doesn’t make recovery fast or easy due to limited backup and retention policies.”

Adler said Microsoft was backing up Exchange Online and Veeam was backing up Exchange on-premises. “We have a hybrid Exchange environment, but Microsoft didn’t give us access and control of our data in the cloud like Veeam gave us on-premises. Then Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 came out and our problem was solved.”

Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 provides what Microsoft doesn’t: comprehensive backup and total control of Office 365 data. Veeam backs up Exchange Online on-premises so the Electra Group can recover email data fast for legal purposes.

Adler said emails aren’t the only thing he and his colleagues need fast access to — Exchange contacts are key too. “Many of our users synchronize their contacts across multiple devices, but sometimes contacts get accidentally deleted or duplicated — often by their children. Veeam gives us the ability to restore their contacts back to a specific point in time, giving us absolute control of Exchange Online data. There are no limitations with Veeam.”

Zeltser said he and his colleagues see Veeam as a great partner to their enterprise. “We’ve worked in the IT industry for more than 20 years and we all agree no vendor offers the level of technical support that Veeam offers,” Zeltser said. “It’s a pleasure to speak to Veeam’s technical staff because they’re knowledgeable and resolve issues fast. Support should never be under rated. It’s a measure of a company’s commitment and success. Veeam is #1 for support.”

The results

Delivers data protection and Availability to support “consider it done” pledge
“Our company’s pledge to clients to “consider it done” isn’t possible unless data is protected and available,” Zeltser said. “Veeam helps us fulfill that pledge.”

Serves as the foundation for an enterprise BC and DR strategy
Veeam backs up 40 TB across 200 VMware vSphere virtual machines on-premises for fast recovery and replicates them off-premises for BC and DR. “We’re confident in Veeam’s ability to scale and accommodate our data growth,” Zeltser said. “We’re also confident in Veeam’s ability to restore our data fast. Veeam restores critical items at least once each month, eliminating the risk of downtime.”

Provides total access and control of Office 365 data to meet legal requirements
The Electra Group uses Veeam to back up Exchange Online on-premises. With an easily accessible backup, advanced search capabilities and flexible recovery options, the IT team can retrieve what’s required fast.