Boosting SaaS resilience: How Reed slashes Microsoft 365 recovery times with Veeam

Reed aims to help people improve their lives through work. This mission takes many different guises, from connecting candidates with their ideal job role to driving theory test preparation. Underpinning all its services is Reed’s workforce, a UK-wide team of highly motivated, skilled specialists that work hard to make a difference for their clients.

“At Reed, we have and always will be a human-centric business,” said Henry Lee, Head of Digital Workplace at Reed. “Data is also essential to what we do. We maintain a massive database of resumés and write and develop our own recruitment platform internally. We’re exploring how to harness AI to better filter job applications and make our operations more efficient. By complementing people with technology, we’re looking to grow our competitive advantage.”

Reed’s focus on augmenting employees with technology is leading to a huge boom in data growth. Moreover, the company also recognizes that its store of protected personal information (PPI) could put it on the radar for cybercriminals.

“Our employees rely on Microsoft 365 apps in their everyday work, and yet it doesn’t include a comprehensive backup as part of the standard offering, so we didn’t have one,” said James Woodward, Cloud Owner at Reed. “Our Microsoft 365 data was growing by between 5% and 6% each year, so we wanted a highly scalable solution that could give us extra layers of redundancy for a business-critical part of our IT environment. We understand all the PPI we hold means we need to be extra-careful about cybersecurity, so we decided it was time to act.”

Reed looked to Veeam to provide an exceptional level of resilience for its Microsoft 365 landscape and empower employees with non-stop access to essential productivity tools. As a long-time user of Veeam Data Platform for its on-premises environment, it was the natural choice to deploy Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365.

“Veeam ticked the boxes for us as it’s best-of-breed data resilience technology for both on-premises and cloud-based systems,” said Woodward. “It offered a fully rounded data backup and recovery solution that goes beyond simple data retention to allowing us to prepare for worst-case scenarios.”

Recently, Reed opted to move to Veeam’s SaaS offering, Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365, which bundles software, backup infrastructure, and unlimited storage at one predictable cost. Through an intuitive web-based user interface, the company’s IT team can now easily manage data resilience for its entire Microsoft 365 estate.

“We’re currently backing up around 120 TB of Microsoft 365 data with Veeam; this covers data for approximately 5,000 Reed users across OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams,” said Woodward. “Our favorite thing about Veeam is the usability. Rather than a product that’s designed for IT experts, it feels far more like something built for a commercial user. Switching to Veeam Data Cloud means we don’t have to worry about storage, updates, or security patches; that’s all handled for us.”

Since moving to Veeam Data Cloud, the Reed IT team has modified data retention policies across its Microsoft 365 environment. This move enabled the company to reduce storage consumption significantly.

“The change to our retention policies has seen our storage requirements drop by 10 TB, which represents a saving of GBP 17,000 per year,” Woodward said.

Using Veeam, Reed can now rapidly recover Microsoft 365 data, helping it to minimize interruptions to its workforce. This new capability represents a strong addition to the company’s disaster recovery (DR) strategy.

“Veeam offers us a final line of defense in the event of a cyberattack or other significant incident affecting our business-critical IT systems,” said Lee. “It is an insurance policy for some of our most important data, making it less likely than ever before that we’d have to bring our business to a halt for any reason.”

By bolstering business continuity, Reed is now better prepared for the future.

“Given the new risks we face every day in terms of cybersecurity, Veeam allows us to operate confidently as a business,” said Simon Baddeley, Managing Director of Business Services at Reed. “It’s never possible to sit back and relax, but Veeam provides extra comfort in our resilience as a business that’s truly invaluable.”

Enables regular, reliable backups of 120 TB of Microsoft 365 data growing at 5-6% per year
“Veeam offers a fully rounded data backup and recovery solution that goes beyond simple data retention to allowing us to prepare for worst-case scenarios,” said Woodward.

Cut storage requirements by 10 TB, translating into savings of 17K GBP annually
As a result of their move to Veeam Data Cloud, Reed modified its data retention policies across its Microsoft 365 estate, slashing storage requirements.

Ensures uninterrupted business operations and maximizes workforce productivity
Reed is using Veeam to empower its employees with non-stop access to business-critical Microsoft 365 applications.