Mahindra Group deploys Veeam to modernize its backup infrastructure

The Business Challenge

As the company steps up its digital transformation initiatives by leveraging analytics technology to help mitigate risk, boost revenues and deliver outstanding customer experiences, Mahindra Group’s reliance on data is increasing. And with many of its activities, such as finance and manufacturing, requiring systems and applications to be available round-the-clock, protecting against unplanned downtime is key to sustaining success.

Ravindra Dhawan, Head of Infrastructure and Operations - Corporate IT at Mahindra Group, explains, “Ensuring users enjoy non-stop access to core applications is critical to maintaining our competitiveness, accelerating innovation, and delivering fast, responsive customer service. Any disruption could have serious consequences and tarnish our excellent reputation.”

While the Mahindra Group IT teams work tirelessly to reduce the risk of unplanned downtime in the first instance, the company’s backup and replication solutions form the last line of defense.

Previously, Mahindra Group relied on backup solutions from multiple vendors. While this approach provided satisfactory protection, it suffered from management and technical complexity, and capacity-based licensing generated significant costs.

Jagdish Joshi, Deputy General Manager - IT Data Center at Mahindra Group, adds, “Because our backup environment was quite complex, we frequently had to consult third-parties for support, increasing costs. The limitations of capacity-based licensing and the fact that we used some tape devices, which can be unreliable at the data recovery stage, meant that our existing environment could not easily adapt to the pressures created by growing data volumes and increased digitalization.”

The Veeam solution

Seeking to reduce complexity, cut costs, and improve backup and recovery reliability, Mahindra Group evaluated three leading backup solutions by running detailed proof of concept (PoC) exercises.

Jagdish Joshi comments, “Veeam Backup & Replication stood apart from all the other solutions. We were particularly impressed with the performance and the fact that the Veeam solution can be installed on commodity hardware—eliminating the risk of being locked in to using a single vendor’s hardware to preserve the integrity of our backups.”

Ravindra Dhawan explains, “We selected the Veeam Universal License to enable us to scale our backup infrastructure to cater to the variability of data volumes and system requirements on a monthly basis—helping to optimize cost-efficiency. No other vendor could offer us such a flexible licensing model, which made Veeam solutions stand apart as the most cost-effective option. And Veeam’s state-of-the-art service level deliverables helped us to improve compression ratios by 30% with enhanced reliability, while also helping us to unlock additional savings.”

Today, Mahindra Group uses Veeam Backup & Replication to back up over 1,000 virtual machines, along with data stored on its physical infrastructure. By switching to the Veeam solution, the company has successfully reduced the cost of its backup activities by 55%.

Ravindra Dhawan comments, “Because Veeam solutions make it much easier and faster to run backups, we’ve increased the regularity of our backup processes for our non-critical workloads from monthly to weekly. We also no longer require support from third-parties. Ultimately, this puts us in a much better position to restore all of the data we need to keep our operations running like clockwork in the unlikely event of unplanned downtime.”

The Results

• More than halves backup and recovery costs:
  “By simplifying our backup infrastructure and embracing flexible licensing from Veeam, we’ve optimized the cost of our backup activities by 55%,” comments Ravindra Dhawan.
• 30% average improvement in data compression ratios:
  Veeam Backup & Replication provides much better compression capabilities than our previous solutions,” says Ravindra Dhawan.
• Strengthens the reliability of system backups by replacing tape storage with disk backup processes:
  “Replacing tape storage with more reliable disk-based processes and automation has reduced system administration costs and helps to mitigate the risk of data recovery operations failing,” explains Jagdish Joshi.
• Supports excellent customer service:
  “Veeam is always available to help us whenever we need support and guidance, which makes it easier for us to provide reliable and responsive services to our customers,” said Dhawan.