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Saunderson House Eliminates Risk of Data Loss with Veeam and HPE Nimble Storage

Veeam and Nimble Storage tick all the boxes for data protection. They help us preserve our policy of no single point of failure.
Dave Pritt
IT Infrastructure Manager
Saunderson House

The Business Challenge

Saunderson House is a business centered entirely on people. The firm’s wealth management services provide clients with seamless financial planning and investment expertise to help them meet their goals — from saving for retirement to passing on their wealth in a tax-efficient manner.

“Our firm helps clients achieve financial clarity and peace of mind,” said Dave Pritt, IT Infrastructure Manager at Saunderson House. “The IT team supports these efforts by making sure critical business systems are always available.”

The challenge was avoiding data loss in systems such as customer relationship management (CRM), email and file servers. “Our policy is no single point of failure,” Pritt said. “We’d been able to preserve our policy until legacy backup failed to meet our needs.”

Pritt said the legacy backup solution was unreliable and difficult to manage. Data recovery was sometimes slow and difficult, and removal of a key feature reduced the IT team’s ability to test replicas and manage failover between data centers seamlessly.

Saunderson House took immediate action. “We ditched legacy backup and looked at nearly every data protection solution on the market,” Pritt said. “Our requirements were simple: integration with Nimble Storage so we could take advantage of its built-in protection plus reliable recovery for BC/DR. We couldn’t risk losing data because it could be catastrophic. In a worst-case scenario, losing data could damage our firm’s reputation and put us out of business.”

The Veeam Solution

Saunderson House replaced legacy backup with Veeam Backup & Replication. Veeam’s advanced integration with HPE Nimble Storage enables frequent applicationconsistent Nimble Storage snapshots and replicas. “Veeam and Nimble provide protection and recovery options that weren’t possible with legacy backup,” Pritt said. “They help us preserve our policy of no single point of failure.”

Veeam backs up 40 TB of data from HPE Nimble Storage Snapshots on premises, and Nimble replicates off premises. This is the first time the IT team has been able to recover an entire VM in minutes. The feature is called Instant VM Recovery and it’s one of the team’s favorites.

Another favorite is Veeam DataLabs. With technologies like SureBackup and SureReplica, the team can verify the recoverability of backups and replicas, putting data protection to work and delivering confidence to the business. Team members also leverage On-Demand Sandbox for Storage Snapshots, enabling them to create isolated copies of the production environment from HPE Nimble Storage Snapshots so they can test software upgrades before deploying them.

The ability to recover entire applications quickly and reliably is hugely important to Saunderson House. That’s why the IT team deployed Veeam Availability Orchestrator. It automates and orchestrates recovery plans for any app, any data, at any time. “True BC/DR requires a planned, practiced and proven strategy,” Pritt said. “Veeam Availability Orchestrator helps take our BC/DR strategy and resilience to a new level, and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface.”

Next, the IT team may delve into dynamic documentation produced by Veeam Availability Orchestrator. It lets companies create, customize and update documentation automatically on a recurring schedule to help comply with regulatory requirements such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

“Veeam offers so many capabilities,” Pritt said. “My advice to IT managers is to speak with one of Veeam’s system engineers to match your needs with Veeam’s capabilities. You’ll be surprised by the possibilities.”

The Results

  • Integrates with HPE Nimble Storage to eliminate the risk of data loss
    “Veeam and Nimble Storage tick all the boxes for data protection,” Pritt said. “They help us preserve our policy of no single point of failure.”
  • Provides protection and recovery options that were not possible in the past
    “When you lose data, you lose faith,” Pritt said. “When you deploy Veeam and Nimble Storage, you regain faith.”
  • Automates and orchestrates BC/DR strategy
    Veeam helps organizations plan, prepare, prove and execute against BC/ DR strategies with extensible orchestration and automation that eliminate the challenges of legacy DR.

Company:

Saunderson House is an independent wealth management firm providing comprehensive financial planning and investment services to high net worth individuals, charities and trusts in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1968 and based in London, England, Saunderson House serves more than 2,300 clients and employs approximately 200 people.

https://saundersonhouse.co.uk/

Challenge:

The challenge for Saunderson House was avoiding data loss. The legacy backup solution had proven to be less than reliable. To ensure no data would be lost it was necessary to back up the backup solution. Saunderson House sets high standards for systems availability so clients will not be impacted.

Results:

  • Integrates with HPE Nimble Storage to eliminate the risk of data loss
  • Provides protection and recovery options that were not possible in the past
  • Automates and orchestrates business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR)