Hollander Techniek engineers an enterprise BCDR strategy with Veeam Cloud Data Management, NetApp HCI and Microsoft Azure

The business challenge

Hollander Techniek is an engineering powerhouse. The company maximizes efficiency, productivity and flexibility for its customers by making their business processes faster, better and more sustainable.

Hollander Techniek focuses on three markets: utility, industry and retail. Solutions range from supermarket renovations that improve and expedite the shopping experience to swimming pool transformations that reduce energy consumption. Hollander Techniek also provides managed services to protect customers’ data. For many customers that includes Microsoft Office 365 data.

“Data drives everything we do and everything our customers do, so it has to be available all the time,” said Arnold Kolkman, IT Engineer at Hollander Techniek. “Our challenge was legacy backup. Symantec Backup Exec was sluggish at recovering data, making it the weak link in our BCDR strategy. Unplanned downtime is never an option for us, so we needed to make a change.”

Unplanned downtime can be disastrous, leading to productivity problems, reputational damage and financial loss. According to a worldwide survey conducted by Statista in 2019, the average cost of downtime is between €270,000 and €360,000 per hour.

Kolkman and his colleague Johan Logtenberg, IT Project Manager at Hollander Techniek, considered two replacements for legacy backup: CommVault and Veeam.

“Veeam was the clearly the best choice,” Logtenberg said. “It’s so easy to use, and one of its big advantages is integration with any storage and any cloud. We knew we would eventually replace storage, and we wanted to incorporate Azure for better BCDR. Veeam made all of that easy, while saving us time and headaches.”

The Veeam solution

Hollander Techniek replaced legacy backup with Veeam Availability Suite, followed by Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365. Next the company deployed NetApp HCI and NetApp SolidFire before incorporating Azure. Deltics, a leading IT solutions provider, supported Hollander Techniek optimize Veeam integration with NetApp.

“Veeam modernized our BCDR strategy with Cloud Data Management, giving us the most comprehensive data protection possible,” Kolkman said. “We eliminated our risk for unplanned downtime by reducing RTOs by 99% and RPOs by 75%, saving us more than 200 manhours.”

Veeam backs up 51 TB across 86 VMware vSphere virtual machines (VMs) on-premises from NetApp HCI and NetApp SolidFire storage snapshots and replicates them to Microsoft Azure. Veeam integrates seamlessly with NetApp, reducing RTOs from 1.5 hours to 5 seconds (99%) and reducing RPOs from one hour to 15 minutes (75%). In a data recovery situation, Veeam Direct Restore to Microsoft Azure lets Hollander Techniek restore VMs to Azure fast.

“Veeam Direct Restore to Microsoft Azure is remarkable,” Kolkman said. “We know because we’ve tested it often. Restoring data takes five quick clicks — how easy is that? Our BCDR strategy is solid.”

A solid strategy is critical when customers depend on you. Manufacturers, for example, depend on Hollander Techniek to build robots that automate picking and packing processes to improve productivity and lowers costs. All the data required to design, build and test robots is protected by Veeam.

Veeam also powers the managed services that Hollander Techniek provides to customers, including a healthcare organization that helps families support children diagnosed with autism. The organization communicates with families through Exchange Online, so losing emails, particularly historical emails, could damage the communication flow and potentially prevent children from receiving the services they need.

Hollander Techniek protects the organization’s Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams data with Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365. Data is always available because Veeam provides instant visibility into Office 365 backups, granular recovery of individual items and easy-to-use eDiscovery options.

“Microsoft doesn’t provide comprehensive backup of Office 365 data, but Veeam does,” Logtenberg said. “Preserving historical email data is critically important — for us too. We’ve been emailing contracts to customers for years, so retaining historical emails enables us to answer questions if a customer challenges us about a contract. Historical SharePoint and OneDrive data are important too — they contain information for tax purposes. Microsoft has a few built-in safety nets, but they don’t provide a robust solution capable of keeping companies out of legal and tax trouble like Veeam does.”

Veeam also saves significant time for Hollander Techniek.

“Veeam enabled us to shift data recovery from the engineering team to the helpdesk team,” Logtenberg said. “Before we deployed Veeam, our engineers spent more than 200 hours each year recovering items that people accidentally deleted. Now the helpdesk takes care of those recoveries because the process is fast and easy, taking seconds, not hours.”

The results:

• Strengthen BCDR strategy while simplifying IT management
  Veeam integrates seamlessly with NetApp HCI, NetApp SolidFire and Azure, ensuring comprehensive data protection and accessibility while simplifying IT management.
• Eliminates the risk of downtime by reducing RTOs by 99% and RPOs by 75%
  “We were skeptical when we heard Veeam would deliver 15-minute RTOs and RPOs, but it’s true,” Kolkman said. “Veeam is the reason our BCDR strategy is solid.”
• Recovery is fast and easy, saving more than 200 man hours each year
  “Being able to shift data recovery from the engineering team to the helpdesk team was a big benefit,” Logtenberg said. “Now engineers can focus on what they do best: improving the IT infrastructure to improve the business.”