Veeam helps Penske keep Australia and New Zealand moving

The business challenges

In the United States the Penske brand is known for its iconic yellow rental trucks. In Australia and New Zealand, there’s much more to the story. The Penske brand is proudly represented in both countries through leading on-and off-highway businesses.

Penske Australia & New Zealand keeps society moving. In addition to trucks that transport goods and services across both countries, the company provides engines for trains, maritime vessels, and military vehicles, and both engines and chassis for buses. The company also supplies generators that deliver electricity to mines, hospitals and large infrastructure projects.

“We offer monitoring and maintenance services as well,” said Bobby Stojceski, Technology and Security Manager at Penske Australia & New Zealand. “Our technicians monitor the engines and generators we provide to customers, so business continues as usual.”

Several IT systems support Penske Australia & New Zealand. Two of the most critical are Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Pentana ERP. They must be available all the time.

“If they’re not available, we’d be in a world of hurt,” Stojceski said. “We wouldn’t be able to provide the level of service our customers expect and deserve. We also wouldn’t be compliant with regulatory requirements, and we’d be exposed to the ever-increasing threat of cyberattacks.”

According to the 2020 Digital Trust Report, a cyberattack causing a fourweek disruption in Australia would cost the economy $30 billion and 163,000 jobs.

“Data protection is a top priority,” Stojceski said. “That’s why we didn’t waste any time replacing Veritas NetBackup. Backup and recovery were slow, unreliable and difficult to manage. Replication wasn’t easy either. We used VMware SRM to replicate, but at the time, it could only replicate at the storage level, and we needed to replicate at the virtual machine level for faster DR.”

Stojceski and his colleagues contacted Sundata, their trusted technology partner and advisor for 30 years. Sundata recommended Veeam Backup & Replication.

The Veeam solution

Veeam helps Penske Australia & New Zealand keep society moving by ensuring IT systems are protected and available. Backup, replication and recovery are 90% faster, and failover is possible for the first time, making disaster recovery efficient and reliable. Veeam also supports regulatory compliance and helps protect against cyberattacks.

“Being able to fail over to our DR center quickly and reliably is the biggest benefit for us,” Stojceski said. “It means monitoring and maintenance services we provide to customers won’t be interrupted, enabling us to do our part to keep the lights on in hospitals and cities for public health and safety, confirm engines in military defense vehicles are operating at maximum capacity, and keep trucks on the road so they can deliver freight to support the economy.”

Stojceski said fast, reliable failover isn’t the only first that Veeam provides. SureBackup is another. It verifies the recoverability of backups, helping the IT team tick off compliance tasks for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), the Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM) and the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD).

“SureBackup makes compliance easier,” Stojceski said. “We’re owned by an American company, so that explains SOX compliance, and we’re a defense contractor for the Australian government, so that explains ISM compliance. We comply with ASD to protect our company and the economy from cyberattacks.”

Stojceski said that as a defense contractor, Penske Australia & New Zealand might be a bigger target for cybercriminals.

“Knowing Veeam helps protect our data is reassuring,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong—we’re on high alert, but if our network were breached, Veeam replicas and backup repository would help us recover our IT systems fast.”

Veeam backs up and replicates 36 TB across 200 virtual machines from Cisco HyperFlex storage snapshots. Penske Australia & New Zealand implemented the Cisco HyperFlex system a few years after deploying Veeam.

“We were refreshing and simplifying our IT infrastructure, and Sundata recommended Cisco HyperFlex because it integrates so well with Veeam,” Stojceski said. “Backup, replication and recovery have never been so fast.”

In addition to integration, Stojceski said Veeam and Cisco HyperFlex have something else in common: They both offer a roadmap for the future. Unfortunately, the future included COVID-19.

“We could have been in tough shape if we hadn’t installed Cisco HyperFlex and Veeam before the pandemic. Because of them we could deploy and protect a remote desktop environment in a matter of days, enabling 300 employees to work from home. There’s never been a more important time to make sure goods and services keep moving through Australia and New Zealand. We’re grateful Veeam and Cisco HyperFlex help us maintain business as usual.”

The results

• Ensures IT systems are protected and available to serve customers
  “Downtime isn’t an option for our customers,” Stojceski said. “Logistics companies are a good example. If their trucks break down as they cross the outback to make deliveries, they must be repaired quickly. If the company orders parts and our CRM is down, we might not be able to get the parts to them fast. Veeam keeps our IT systems available all the time.”
• Provides reliable failover and 90% faster backup, replication and recovery
  “Having backup and DR in one solution is a welcome change,” Stojceski said. “From the very start, failovers have been incredibly fast and easy. Veeam’s learning curve is unrivaled in the industry. It’s simple and intuitive.”
• Supports compliance with SOX, ISM and ASD, and protects against cyberattacks
  “Verifying the recoverability of backups is a gamechanger for regulatory compliance—that’s why SureBackup is our favorite Veeam feature.” Stojceski said. “It goes without saying that we’re looking at SureReplica next.”