Isuzu Motors South Africa Protects Revenue Streams with Veeam

The Business Challenge

In 2017, General Motors (GM) divested from South Africa during a global restructuring process. Isuzu Motors purchased GM’s manufacturing facility and GM’s share in Isuzu Truck South Africa. IMSAF was born.

One of the top priorities during the divestiture was for IMSAF to build its own IT infrastructure. GM had provided IT services from the United States during the joint venture, so now it was up to IMSAF to support the business.

IMSAF turned to Dimension Data for help. Renowned for its expertise in infrastructure design, optimization and management, Dimension Data has more than 8,000 clients worldwide, including 70% of the Fortune 100 and 60% of the Fortune 500.

“We chose Dimension Data because they have the skills and staff to bring together the world’s best technologies, and for us that includes SAP®,” said Loren Meyer, CIO at IMSAF. “Dimension Data built a robust IT infrastructure for us and recommended a replacement for legacy backup because it didn’t adequately protect SAP.”

Protecting ERP systems such as SAP is a concern for many businesses. According to the Forbes Technology Council, 89% of companies surveyed worry about ERP downtime, and they estimate subsequent damage could cost $5 million.

“Legacy backup was slow to recover SAP, sometimes preventing access to data for hours or even days, “Meyer said. “Data related to automotive parts and vehicle information is integral to our production facilities. Without it, bakkies (small pick-up trucks) and trucks can’t be sold to dealers or customers, and dealers can’t order parts from our warehouses. If we had continued using legacy backup, our revenue streams would have suffered.”

The Veeam Solution

IMSAF replaced legacy backup with Veeam® Backup & Replication™.

“Veeam protects our revenue streams by radically reducing the risk of downtime,” Meyer said. “Recovery speed increased by 99%, making SAP available all the time. That means we always have access to the critical data that enables bakkies and trucks to be sold to dealers and customers — without delay or interruption. Vehicle sales grew by nearly 9% between 2018 and 2019, and Veeam supported that growth.”

Veeam is an SAP-certified backup and recovery solution. The Veeam Plug-in for SAP HANA® lets IMSAF manage backup and restore natively through backint integration. The plug-in functions as an intermediary between SAP HANA and the Veeam backup repository; therefore, all backup and recovery operations are performed with native SAP HANA tools to simplify management and assure transaction consistency.

“One of the biggest benefits of using Veeam is being able to recover SAP data instantly,” Meyer said. “Almost every business decision is driven by SAP, and Veeam helps us make sure it’s always accessible.”

Another benefit is protecting customers’ personal information from loss or damage. Veeam supports compliance with the POPI Act by providing built-in, AES 256-bit end-to-end encryption. Every backup is protected against unauthorized access.

Veeam backs up 4 TB across 50 virtual machines on-premises for instant recovery and replicates them off-premises for BC and DR. Replication, failover and failback weren’t an option before Veeam.

“Veeam makes BC and DR amazingly efficient and effective,” Meyer said. “It’s easy to see why Veeam is a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Backup and Recovery Solutions. That’s one of the reasons we knew Veeam would be right for us.”

The Results

• “Protects revenue by recovering SAP 99% faster (in minutes, not hours or days)
  “The business can’t operate without SAP data,” Meyer said. “That’s why Veeam is such a vital part of our IT infrastructure. We don’t have to worry about SAP being offline because Veeam helps us make sure it’s always available.”
• Strengthens the BC and DR strategy with first-ever replication
  “For the first time, we can replicate data to our DR site of choice,” Meyer said. “Veeam helps us minimize downtime and maintain business operations.”
• Supports compliance with the POPI Act
  Veeam helps to secure data with built-in encryption that transforms data into an unreadable, scrambled format with the help of a cryptographic algorithm and a secret key.