Supporting data-driven science: The SickKids Research Institute clears a path to breakthrough discoveries with Veeam

The SickKids Research Institute (RI) is committed to bringing discoveries from the lab to the bedside as soon as possible. With technology playing a growing role in research innovation, scientists depend on data like never before.

“Biology today is high-throughput and data-deep — so protecting and maintaining access to data is essential to supporting high-quality scientific discovery,” said Dr. Ameet Sengar, Senior Manager, Scientific Strategic Projects at SickKids RI.

As a result, the ability to put reliable access to data at researchers’ fingertips is foundational to supporting scientific progress at a world-class research institute.

“We set out to upgrade the centralized IT infrastructure we use to replicate data and store backups,” said Avery MacLean, Director, Research Information Technology at SickKids RI. “As regulations evolve and research environments grow more complex, even brief disruptions to data availability can slow critical work. Strengthening our data resilience has always been a top priority.”

To support the next wave of breakthroughs in children’s health, the SickKids RI rolled out a powerful new infrastructure and deployed Veeam to enable round-the-clock data resilience. Following a public request-for-proposal (RFP), the institute opted to extend the environment protected by Veeam from its virtual machines to everything except for its high-performance computing cluster and adopted Veeam Universal License (VUL).

“Veeam pairs industry-leading capabilities with an easy-to-use interface. When we hit a licensing issue, Veeam partnered with us and our storage vendor to solve it quickly,” said Adam T., Senior Manager of Research IT Infrastructure at SickKids RI. “With VUL, we were able to deploy immutable Linux repositories for our backups, giving us a clear improvement to our security posture.”

Using Veeam, the SickKids RI is enabling more comprehensive data protection and slashing data recovery times across its IT environment. As a result, the institute is supporting its scientists to work without interruption, confident that data is secure and accessible whenever they need it.

“We rely on Veeam to help protect the data that supports the work of our researchers,” said Adam T. “With Veeam, we’re safely backing up hundreds of terabytes of unstructured data, including medical images and 3D scientific models, and nothing slips through the net. We can recover data reliably and far faster, cutting recovery times by as much as 70% when combined with our powerful new disk solution. If a service disruption occurs, this means scientists can get back to work faster and with confidence.”

By helping the SickKids RI to ensure consistent data availability, integrity, and security, Veeam helps reinforce the Research Institute’s role as a trusted environment for cutting-edge science.

“The investments we’ve made into data resilience with Veeam are reinforcing the trust we’ve built up in the scientific community,” said MacLean. “We’ve long been a preferred location for collaborators and researchers to store their data, and Veeam is helping us build on that trusted reputation. Scientists can expedite their research approvals because Veeam meets the strict compliance requirements for how data needs to be managed and protected.”

By consolidating on Veeam for data resilience, the SickKids RI enhanced its capabilities without increasing the burden on its IT team.

“We now encrypt all our backups and store them in an immutable repository with Veeam, which gives us vital added protection against cyberattacks,” said Adam T.

“Our data ranges widely in size and format, so having a solution that simply works is a huge advantage. We’ve gained all these improvements with Veeam without adding any dedicated resources, which is a meaningful outcome.”

MacLean said, “At SickKids Research Institute, we believe strongly in open science and global collaboration because sharing knowledge is how we unlock the secrets of childhood disease and wellbeing. To support that vision, we need to digitize biological samples quickly and move them into large-scale computing environments, then share results just as fast. Our goal is to empower our researchers with everything they need to make those big breakthroughs sooner, and Veeam is part of our advanced research computing architecture that helps makes that possible.”

• Up to 70% improvement in data recovery times when combined with new disk technology
  By enabling comprehensive data backups and rapid recovery with Veeam and a new disk-based backup repository, the SickKids RI is helping ensure research can continue with minimal disruption, even during data recovery events.
• Boosts data resilience without increasing management time and effort
  The SickKids RI has gained new cyber-resiliency capabilities such as encryption and immutability, without over-burdening existing staff.
• Strengthens advanced research computing environment for talent attraction
  “Ensuring research data is protected and reliably available through Veeam contributes to our reputation as a destination for breakthrough science, giving researchers confidence that the data they depend on is there when they need it,” said MacLean.