No need for Hanover County to call 911 for data protection — Veeam has them covered!

In Hanover County, safety is more than a top priority. Safety is a value that is incorporated into every operation and service protecting residents, employees and first responders.

Protecting data that underpins safety operations and services is crucial. For example, 911 data must be backed up and readily available so dispatchers can provide first responders with the most accurate, up-to-the-minute information to protect them and the people they’re helping.

“If data can’t be restored in real time, safety and security services would not be halted, but there might be a slight risk they’d slow down slightly — and that’s a risk no county wants to take,” said Lee Speeks, Senior Systems Engineer, Hanover County. “As soon as our previous backup solution showed signs of slower recovery, we looked for a replacement.”

In addition to real-time recovery, the IT Department wanted a versatile, easy-to-use solution providing ransomware protection and self-restore capabilities that could be delegated securely.

“When you work for a county, you wear many hats,” Speeks said. “I’m responsible for backing up the majority of our systems and applications but not all of them. We needed a solution that’s simple and intuitive because my teammates have to be able to jump in at a moment’s notice to troubleshoot issues. Two of the replacements we considered (Commvault and Veritas NetBackup) were not easy to understand or easy to use, but Veeam met every requirement, and it proved its value quickly.”

Hanover County deployed Veeam Data Platform – Advanced Edition, which features backup, replication, immutability, recovery and proactive monitoring and analytics. Speeks said when one of her teammates discovered a server had disappeared because its Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate had expired, he used Veeam Instant VM Recovery to restore the server in seconds.

“This was a serious situation because our first responders need access to an internal website hosted on that server,” Speeks said. “Veeam restored it instantly so they never missed a beat. I’ve used a lot of backup solutions over the years, but this is the first solution that recovers in real time. Veeam Data Platform is also more sophisticated than other solutions, especially regarding self-restore and immutability, yet it’s so easy to use. Usability was the reason we deployed Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 too. We wanted to back up users’ data in Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams based on our backup and retention schedule, not Microsoft’s, and we wanted real-time data restore without the additional cost.”

Veeam Data Platform and Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 deliver real-time restore for Hanover County’s data supporting the safety and security of residents, employees and first responders. Veeam also provides backup encryption and immutability to protect against ransomware and plays a key role in the county’s business continuity and disaster recovery plan.

“Our top priority is protecting data supporting our county’s public safety services, and Veeam Data Platform does that well,” Speeks said. “It’s also important to protect Microsoft 365 data for our 1,300 users because their data underpins county operations, making Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 a natural fit for us.”

Veeam backs up and replicates 900 TB across 240 Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines and 300 TB in Microsoft 365 to Dell EMC Compellent storage. Veeam also sends backup copies to Cloudian S3-compatible object storage where they are made immutable for bullet-proof ransomware protection.

“I learned about Cloudian during a Veeam webinar,” Speeks explained. “I attend as many webinars as possible because I always learn something new about Veeam functionality. Webinar participants also share helpful information about how they use Veeam to eliminate risks for downtime. During one webinar, they talked about how Veeam’s Scale-out Backup Repository makes it easy to send backup copies directly to Cloudian where object lock makes them immutable.”

Immutability applies to data in Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 too. This is vital for Hanover County because Exchange data supports internal and external email, SharePoint data supports internal workflows and OneDrive data supports county operations. The IT Department delegates secure restores using Veeam’s Self-Service Restore Portal. Like Veeam Data Platform, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 offers monitoring and customized reporting for proactive issue resolution.

“It is really interesting how the sphere of data protection and issue resolution keep expanding within organizations,” Speeks said. “Veeam helps everyone on our team stay on top of data protection and one step ahead of ransomware.”

“There is something else we like about Veeam,” she continued. “The Veeam Customer Support Portal offers documentation so we can resolve an issue or submit a ticket, and Veeam is quick to respond. The portal also lets you go directly to Veeam Community Forums. When I asked a question in a forum, I was surprised by how quickly Veeam answered, along with several customers who provided advice. It's a great community.”

• Delivers real-time restore of Hanover County’s data supporting public safety 
  “Veeam protects data in so many ways — monitoring, alerting, reporting, verifying recoverability and instant recovery for real-time restore,” Speeks said. “I’m also amazed how fast and simple it is to recover granularly with Veeam Explorers for Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams.”
• Provides backup encryption and immutability to protect against ransomware 
  Veeam offers the fastest ransomware response through encryption, multi-factored authentication, continuous data protection, immutability and by detecting threats and malicious behavior before clean data is restored.
• Plays a key role in the county’s business continuity and disaster recovery plan 
  Veeam plays an important role in data protection by supporting the 3-2-1-1-0 Rule (3 different copies of data on 2 different media with 1 copy offsite and 1 copy that is air-gapped, immutable or offline and 0 backup recovery errors).