Housing Company Gets Veeam Cloud Connect for Ransomware Protection
Challenges:
The housing company realized that their legacy backup wouldn’t be able to protect sensitive resident information from ransomware. They needed a solution that could deliver affordable ransomware protection , made data management easy, and required minimum hardware.
Solution:
Veeam Cloud Connect to Azure with StoneFly management server that provides encrypted tunnel for data transfer, encryption at rest, immutable backups, air-gapping, and more.
Results:
- Automated cloud backup to Azure with built-in backup data integrity checks.
- Immutable WORM volumes with file lockdown and S3 object lockdown capabilities.
- Reduced Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) using features such as instant VM recovery, granular file-level restore, and more.
Organization
The company is a housing association based in Canada that provides homes for thousands of citizens in an affordable price.
Industry
Housing & Real Estate
Challenges
As a housing association, the company retained residents’ personnel information, and financial information which made them a potential target for cyber-attacks.
With the increasing volume of data and the number of cyber-attacks, the company’s IT team noticed that their current legacy backup system would not be able protect sensitive data from sophisticated ransomware attacks which in turn risked business continuity. The company needed a solution which would help them back up their sensitive data in a hassle-free and reliable manner to a secure location.
“We wanted to automate backup and recovery as much as we could..”, said William, the IT manager of the company, “..because we wanted to reduce the possibility of human error while also efficiently minimizing dedicated data protection resources – both monetary and human”
Solution
After a discussion with the IT team of the company, StoneFly experts suggested Veeam cloud connect to Azure.
As a Veeam Propartner and Gold reseller, and an Azure Cloud Service Provider (CSP) and marketplace partner, StoneFly offers a complete turnkey cloud backup solution that combines: Veeam cloud connect, management server, and Azure cloud storage.
Veeam cloud connect provides backup and replication features which enable the housing company to automate data protection and customize Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) as needed.
The StoneFly management server lets the company set up an encrypted tunnel for data transfer in addition to encryption at rest. The encryption ensures that backups are safe from threats such as hackers and data breaches.
The third component of the solution is Azure cloud storage which can be mapped as a local drive using the management server making utilization seamless and hassle-free. Furthermore, the cloud gateway also enables the company’s IT team to leverage immutable storage in Azure using features such as Write-Once Read-Many (WORM), file lockdown, and S3 object lockdown.
The Veeam cloud connect to Azure also provide recovery capabilities such as direct restore to Azure, full VM recovery, and granular file-level recovery which speed up the recovery process and allow the housing company to continue operating in the event of a disaster.
“With StoneFly, not only we got Veeam cloud connect but also a secure encrypted tunnel for data transfers and an immutable target storage for our backups in Azure – all within our budget”, said William.
The Results
Automated Cloud Backups to Azure
The company’s IT staff can automate cloud backups using Veeam cloud connect backup to Azure. Not only does Veeam cloud connect enables them to schedule backup and replication jobs but also automatically checks for backup data integrity using built-in features such as Veeam SureBackup.
By leveraging automation, the company can reduce human error, ensure reliable data protection, and reduce the number of personnel dedicated to manage and monitor backup and recovery.
Immutable Backups in the Cloud
With the built-in management server, the housing company can leverage built-in immutable storage features such as WORM, S3 object lockdown, and file lockdown, on-premises and in Azure.
Immutable storage allows read-only access while preventing editing, overwriting, and deletion. This makes the backups stored in these volumes safe from cyber-threats such as ransomware as they cannot be maliciously encrypted.
Quick Backup and Recovery with Direct Restore to Cloud
In the event of a ransomware attack or disaster, the company can now restore backups directly to the Azure cloud. In addition to shorter Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs), the ability to restore data to the cloud enables the housing company to continue operating even if the primary hardware fails.
Reliable Ransomware Protection with Cloud Air-Gapping
In addition to immutable storage in the cloud, the company also uses StoneFly’s cloud-native air-gapped backups for additional ransomware protection. The air-gapped volumes are isolated from the primary production environment and cloud volumes which protects the backup data stored in them from ransomware and data breaches.
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