Terberg Group drives automotive innovation with help from Veeam

The Business Challenge

Intellectual property is one of the most valuable assets a company owns, particularly in the automotive industry. As competition intensifies between companies who have to adapt to changing developments such as sustainability, digitalization, electrification and autonomous vehicles, intellectual property becomes a defining factor in a company’s success.

Intellectual property is a defining factor in a company’s value too. According to Ocean Tomo, an intellectual capital merchant bank firm, intellectual property can constitute more than 80% of a single company’s value.

Terberg Group has intellectual property of 28 companies, including Terberg Business Lease Group (including Justlease) active in the car leasing market.

One example is computer-aided design (CAD) drawings. For decades, Terberg has used CAD to develop and refine each chassis in its specialty vehicles, including tractors that move cargo at airports, seaports and distribution centers. Terberg’s primary CAD applications are PTC Creo and Windchill. The company also uses AutoCAD, HiCAD and Solid Edge.

“CAD drawings are one of our strongest assets,” said Marco de Hair, IT Manager at Terberg Group. “Protecting them is a priority because losing them could lead to bankruptcy.”

Symantec Backup Exec protected CAD drawings (and all data) until it was incapable of accommodating Terberg’s business growth. Within one year, company acquisitions nearly tripled the number of employees from 1,110 to 3,000 and terabytes of data from 80 to 200.

“Our company grew exponentially in a very short time, but legacy backup wasn’t scalable,” de Hair said. “Backup failed throughout the day, making recovery a much longer and more complicated process. Who wants to spend all their time rerunning failed backups and restoring data when they’d rather be developing new tools for the business?”

The IT team also faced a second challenge. Terberg was migrating to Microsoft Office 365, and the team worried about losing access and control of historical data in Exchange Online and OneDrive Online.

“Microsoft offers a 30-day retention period, but that’s not a proper backup,” de Hair said. “We have to be able to restore emails and files fast for legal purposes, but we weren’t confident in our ability.”

The Veeam Solution

Terberg replaced legacy backup with Veeam Backup & Replication, putting data protection in the driver’s seat and safeguarding intellectual property. Next Terberg deployed Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, gaining total access and control of historical data to meet legal compliance requirements. By simplifying IT, Veeam saves the equivalent of nearly one FTE, which allows IT to shift the focus from backup and recovery to predictive analytics.

“Everyone said Veeam is the best solution out there, and everyone was right,” de Hair said. “Veeam takes care of data protection so we can focus on the business.”

Veeam backs up and replicates more than 200 TB across nearly 450 virtual machines (VMs) from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) 3PAR StoreServ Storage Snapshots. Recovery with Veeam is four times faster because of a feature called Instant VM Recovery. Legacy backup couldn’t recover an entire VM instantly.

Instant VM Recovery is essential when a company’s most critical applications run o n several VMs, including Terberg’s CAD applications. They fuel intellectual property, enabling Terberg to differentiate itself in the market. Terberg’s electric tractors are a prime example. They not only eliminate carbon emissions, but they also improve safety by restricting speed when they’re hauling two stacked containers rather than one. An autonomous vehicle called AutoTUG improves safety too, and it saves on personnel costs. AutoTUG determines its position using transponders embedded in the ground, enabling it to operate alone or among vehicles with human drivers.

Instant VM Recovery is essential when a company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system runs on several VMs too. Terberg uses Microsoft Dynamics AX on-premises to automate and optimize business processes. Veeam backs up the VMs that support Dynamics AX.

“It’s a relief knowing Veeam protects our intellectual property and our ERP,” de Hair said. “It’s also a relief knowing Veeam protects our data in Microsoft Office 365.”

Microsoft provides powerful services in Office 365, but comprehensive backup is not one of them. Veeam fills that void while also providing full visibility into Office 365 backups, granular recovery of individual items and an easy-to-use eDiscovery option, so Terberg can meet legal compliance requirements quickly and easily.

“One of the biggest benefits of using Veeam is ease-of-use, and that saves time,” de Hair said. “Before we deployed Veeam, one of our colleagues spent 90% of his time rerunning failed backups and recovering data. Now he spends less than 10% of his time on backup, giving us the flexibility to work on projects that add value to the business like predictive maintenance.”

Predictive maintenance lets Terberg evaluate the condition of vehicles at customers’ work sites and proactively repair them before problems arise. Predictive maintenance is a product of predictive analytics. Terberg extracts data from Microsoft Dynamics AX and places it in Microsoft Azure for analysis.

“The more we use Veeam, the more we realize how reliable, robust and effective it is,” de Hair said. “If you’re not already using Veeam, you should consider using it.”

The Results

• Puts data protection in the driver’s seat, safeguarding intellectual property
  “Veeam helps us protect one of our most valuable business assets — intellectual property,” de Hair said. “Veeam supports our efforts to differentiate ourselves from competitors.”
  
• Provides total access and control of Office 365 data, making legal compliance easier
  Without an easily accessible copy of Office 365 data, retrieving historical emails and files for legal compliance purposes could be costly and time-consuming for Terberg.
  “Veeam gives us the ability to securely back up Office 365 and protect our data,” de Hair said.
• Saves nearly one FTE, shifting the focus to predictive analytics
  Veeam simplifies IT, giving theTerberg’s IT team more time to work on projects that add value to the business including predictive maintenance, which improves vehicle performance and reliability.