Impresa Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A. Deploys Veeam to Support Digital Transformation

The Business Challenge

In recent years, Impresa Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A. started a path of expansion towards foreign markets, supported by a deep process of digital transformation that, among other things, has led to the change of the organization’s ERP environment and to the introduction of advanced productivity and collaboration tools.

The growing importance of data availability showed the limitations of the existing backup solution, especially when rebuilding files.

The problem was further exacerbated after the adoption of Microsoft Office 365 data in the cloud for approximately 1.400 of the groups’ accounts. This meant there was an essential need to get total access, control and protection of information to ensure business continuity and mitigate against attacks such as cryptolockers to which the environment is vulnerable.

With support from Infor, the groups ERP infrastructure partner, the company began an in-depth analysis of the market to find a Cloud Data Management platform with Office 365 protection capabilities.

"Most of the solutions that were in line with the available budget showed clear limitations, especially in terms of dynamism and execution times. No platform guaranteed the effectiveness and flexibility necessary to support our business growth expectations apart from Veeam,” said Augusto Lambertino, IT Director, Impresa Pizzarotti & C. S..p.A.

The Veeam Solution

Inform initially rolled out Veeam Availability Suite, which produced exciting results. Veeam’s Instant VM Recovery capabilities meant that backup and recovery times were reduced by 30% compared with previous solutions. Veeam’s automated processes also meant that man-hour savings were realized in the IT Department and the staff could be deployed on higher value projects elsewhere across the group. With Lambertino’s key aim of improving speed, reliability and flexibility, the group easily installed Veeam SureBackup, across two data centers where 120 virtual servers reside, and in the subsidiaries’ sites, which mainly host stand-alone servers.

 “Veeam allowed us to change our approach to backup and keep our applications running without interruption,” states Lambertino. “Before Veeam, we did it with time consuming operations. Now, using the new solution, we automatically manage hundreds of virtual machines every day, and in theory we'd be able to restore the entire data center in no time. The daily reports automatically sent by the system tell us if something has gone wrong — freeing us from direct daily control.” Lambertino was also impressed by the simplicity of the DR procedures. “Veeam’s is much simpler and the new Disaster Recovery plan is much smaller”.

After the success of the first phase of the Veeam implementation — Infor installed Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365. This provided Impresa Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A a better way to backup and store all Microsoft Office 365 email, SharePoint and OneDrive data. The IT team was keen to ensure that data was stored, accessible and protected in a separate environment from the production site so that it could quickly search for an item whenever the business needed.

Impresa Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A have also benefitted from centralizing their data management strategy with Veeam. The single console provided by the Veeam Availability Suite means that all tasks have been simplified, reducing Total Cost of Ownership. “Given the performance, ease of use and man-hour savings achieved by deploying Veeam, we are confident of expanding the platform across all our subsidiaries to support the groups growth overseas and ERP strategy,” concludes Lambertino.

The Results

Backup and recovery times reduced by 30%
Veeam Instant VM Recovery has dramatically improved recovery procedures compared with previous platforms and keeps ERP applications running.

Centralized data management resulting in lower Total Cost of Ownership
Veeam Availability Suite allows Impresa Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A to control the entire architecture, from data centers to Office 365 accounts, from a single management console.

Optimal assurance that the groups Office 365 environment is always available as data volumes grow during business expansion
Veeam eliminates the risk of Impresa Pizzarotti & C. S.p.A losing access, control and visibility of their data — ensuring it is always accessible.