Veeam drives data protection for Ituran’s car-connected solutions

The Business Challenge

Nearly three decades ago, Ituran’s founders identified a ground-breaking opportunity to transform technology used by the Israeli Air Force to locate and recover pilots who had abandoned their aircraft in emergency situations. By transforming this technology, the founders solved a serious dilemma for insurance companies: recovering stolen vehicles efficiently so they could be returned to their lawful owners. Ituran became one of the first global providers of Stolen Vehicle Recovery (SVR) solutions.

Today the Ituran brand is synonymous with SVR, fleet management and connectivity. The company develops, manufactures, and markets a full suite of innovative hardware and software solutions for customers in multiple industries. Ituran’s proprietary IT systems, which are underpinned by Microsoft SQL Server Database, support these solutions, so they must be backed up and available 24 hours each day — just like the solutions they enable. When Backup Exec could no longer deliver the level of protection and availability required by the business, the IT team looked for a replacement.

“Legacy backup was unreliable, so the team considered two solutions: Commvault and Veeam,” said Shlomi Ishai, IT Manager in the Israeli office. “Veeam is simpler to implement and manage, so the decision was easy.”

Next Ituran migrated to Microsoft Office 365. Ishai said he and his colleagues worried about losing data in Exchange Online, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams, so they extended Veeam protection to Office 365. Even after the migration, Veeam will enable them to keep a separate copy of the data in a separate location, so they can easily recover from it in the future if needed.

“The decision to extend Veeam protection to Office 365 was easy too,” Ishai said. “Veeam is a market leader in keeping 365 data protected and available.”

The Veeam Solution

Veeam Availability Suite protects Ituran’s IT systems that support telematics and connected-car solutions, and Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 provides total access, control and protection of Office 365 data. Together the Veeam solutions prevent data loss and save approximately 40 hours each week, giving the IT team more time for innovative projects that empower the company.

“Ituran is a world leader in telematics, so protecting the systems that support our solutions and services is a business priority,” Ishai said. “Veeam provides what legacy backup did not provide: reliable backup and recovery so our solutions and services are always available to customers.”

One of Ituran’s most famous and revered customers is United Hatzalah of Israel, the country’s largest independent, non-profit, volunteer emergency medical service organization. More than 5,000 volunteers operate a fleet of 1,000 ambulances and ambucycles to provide free first-response services to anyone in need — at any time. Ituran provides United Hatzalah with fleet management software, telematic devices and driver identification services to assure the closest and most specifically skilled volunteer medics are dispatched as quickly as possible to the scene of every emergency.

Veeam protects these solutions and services by backing up and replicating 100 TB across 300 physical and virtual machines from NetApp and HPE Nimble storage snapshots on-premises and off-premises. Veeam also enables onpremises backup of Ituran’s Office 365 data. Moreover, Veeam Explorers for Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange Online, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams provide fast, granular recovery.

“It’s important to keep Office 365 data safe and available, and Veeam allows us to achieve that goal with flexible deployment options, like backups onpremises,” Ishai said. “If we need to reference an email or document from several years ago, they are always available.”

Veeam also saves time — about 40 hours each week.

“The IT team spends less time managing data protection, giving them more time to learn about new technology that will benefit the company,” Ishai said. “Veeam also provides monitoring, reporting and capacity planning, giving us full visibility into the virtual environment. We can resolve issues before they become problems, and we can reconfigure the environment to work smarter.”

The Results

• Protects the IT systems supporting telematics and car-connected solutions
  “Veeam offers modern data protection and a roadmap for innovation,” Ishai said. “As soon as Veeam offered on-premises backup for Office 365 data, we knew that was the right solution for us.”
• Provides total access, control and protection of all company data in Office 365
  “Backing up Office 365 data on-premises is simple with Veeam,” Ishai said. “It’s a good feeling knowing this data is always available if we need it.”
• Saves approximately 40 hours each week, giving the IT team time for innovation
  “Data protection requires significantly less time with Veeam,” Ishai said. “The team enjoys the extra time they have to stay at the forefront of technology.”