Veeam provides Encora with peace of mind and data resilience across its hybrid environment

Encora drives digital transformation for its clients through its innovative software engineering solutions. As the company expanded, it evolved from traditional on-premises IT environments to cloud-based systems. By embracing a hybrid cloud approach, the company aims to ensure that every user across its 40 global offices has access to the same digital tools. 

However, the rapid move to the cloud led to an expansive data footprint that spread across all major cloud providers including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. Encora wanted to improve access to data, heighten data resilience, and gain greater confidence in recovering data to and from any environment.

“Having data available whenever and wherever we need it is crucial to our performance as a global digital engineering provider,” said Ankit Agarwal, Senior Director, Global Systems and Cybersecurity at Encora. “We also depend on data resilience for business continuity. Our growing multi-cloud footprint required a central approach.”

Acutely aware of cyber risks, IT leaders at Encora were keen to have immutable backups and adopt the 3-2-1 backup rule throughout the business. This rule refers to the practice of maintaining three copies of data stored on two different media, with one copy stored offsite.

“Data is everything these days. Whether it’s for internal or client use, we take data protection very seriously,” said Agarwal. “We set out to develop a central backup solution to protect our hybrid infrastructure. It had to be location-independent and capable of backing up from all sources to provide data freedom.”

Encora partnered with Veeam to help create a central, location-independent protection solution for its rapidly growing data footprint. The aim was to improve productivity, achieve data freedom, and enhance data resilience.

“We chose Veeam to be our partner because they’re at the forefront of the data protection industry, constantly innovating and introducing new features,” said Agarwal. “To offer scalable solutions to our customers, we need vendors that can do the same — and Veeam delivered.”

Encora relies on Veeam to back up its on-premises VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs), following the 3-2-1 backup rule, and taking advantage of immutable backups for their data protection. The company also started using Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 to protect Microsoft 365 apps including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Teams.

“We’ve adopted Veeam as a universal data protection solution across all our on-premises and cloud environments,” said Agarwal. “We no longer worry about data slipping through the net, and central control gives us much needed peace of mind that we’re fully covered.” 

With Veeam, Encora is increasing speed and productivity for data protection activities. The solution has shrunk the risk of backup processes over-running and affecting production systems and has freed time for IT teams to add more value. Because Veeam is an intuitive and easy-to-use solution, Encora is no longer reliant on a handful of people understanding its data backup and recovery processes. 

“Veeam is simple to adopt and highly cost-effective,” said Agarwal. “We’ve experienced many versions of the solution and have always found it seamless to upgrade.”

When issues such as bad patches or reboot errors crop up, Veeam is on hand to help Encora recover quickly. Snapshot backups and responsive Veeam customer support enables the company to minimize downtime.

“Veeam has helped us recover data many times in the eight years we’ve been using it,” said Agarwal. “When a rollback cannot help us, we have snapshots to rely on. We can recover 40% faster with Veeam than we could in the past, whether our data is on-premises or in the cloud.”

As the data protection industry rapidly evolves, Encora is now evaluating Veeam Vault — a fully managed secure cloud storage resource in Microsoft Azure — to expand its business protection.

“Our Veeam implementation has grown tenfold with our data and continues to keep pace with our protection requirements across every platform and team, across the globe,” said Agarwal. “Veeam is a very reliable partner, and they never stop innovating.”

• Provides comprehensive, consistent data protection across Encora’s global operations, saving on costs with one backup platform
  Encora can pursue its cloud-first strategy with the assurance that data is available to its international workforce 24/7.
• Improves and simplifies backup management, freeing IT teams to add more value
  Encora has dramatically increased its data protection capabilities while driving up efficiency with Veeam, enabling it to redirect internal resources to other activities.
• Accelerates data recovery by 40%, increasing employee productivity and strengthening business continuity
  “Veeam has helped us recover data many times in the eight years we’ve been using it,” said Agarwal. “When a rollback cannot help us, we have snapshots to rely on. We always recover faster with Veeam than we could in the past, whether the data is on-premises or in the cloud.”