Veeam: Reliable Backups for Improved Performance at Softtek
Spotlight - Tue, 12/08/2020 - 10:02

Veeam: Reliable Backups for Improved Performance at Softtek

In 2018, Sofftek was struggling with data back up and replication. Veeam helped to resolve the issue offering flexibility and reliability.
Jan Hogewoning By Jan Hogewoning | Journalist and Industry Analyst - Tue, 12/08/2020 - 10:02
Share it!

Softtek is an information technology services company based in Monterrey. It provides application software development, testing, security, business process outsourcing (BPO) and IT infrastructure management, security and support. Today, it counts 30,000 employees across 30 offices in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia. The company is known for popularizing the term ‘nearshoring’, providing services to countries that are in close proximity to its offices.

As a software developer, data availability is a core necessity for Sofftek. Before the company adopted Veeam data solutions in 2018, it was dealing with a range of issues that inhibited fully secure data availability. The company operates in different time zones, including Mexico, South America, Central America, North America, Europe and Asia. Considering that its operations were essentially 24/7, maintenance windows were limited, making backing up data highly complicated. Because of limited maintenance windows, the only option for the IT area was to perform backups at limited times, from Friday to Saturday. In addition, for different critical applications, the operation could not be stopped at all due to the types of database. The need to find a better data back up and replication solution was also was a matter of compliance.

Softtek’s primary focus regarding data back up and replication were three centers that performed essential tasks for internal operations, located in Mexico City, Monterrey and Aguascalientes. "The weekends were not enough for us to do maintenance and during the week it was not possible because links were saturated,” says Arturo Marroquin, Global Director of IT at Sofftek, commenting on the challenge. In 2018, his team was advised by DRP Mexico, a business partner of Veeam in Mexico, to seek out Veeam to solve the problem. "We decided on Veeam because we only needed network attached storage (NAS). It was no longer necessary to acquire infrastructure as it would have been with another manufacturer. In addition, the proof of concept was agile and being able to continue using our hardware was one of the things that helped us choose Veeam," said Marroquin.

The first year for Veeam was dedicated to migrating Softtek’s backups to a virtual environment. Previous backups were done manually and would take an average of eight hours. This was reduced to less than an hour. Then, Veeam began recovery tests, managing to reduce the average time by 25 percent. In addition, replication started to be carried out in the different countries where the company had operations. Today, Softtek has 145 jobs programmed, 317 VMs backed up with different functionalities, some of them hosting databases, that are backed up while remaining online and accessible, one master console in the city of Monterrey and five remote consoles in total, which allows the company to back up 25TB of information daily. In 2019, the company, with the support of DRP Mexico, changed some backup boxes and the backup orchestrator, making further improvements. In 2020, they started to back up with Veaam 365.

Through Veeam’s solutions, Softtek is now able to perform backups and recoveries faster, in a more agile and reliable manner, without having to stop operations. By reducing the time spent on backup and recovery, the dedicated workforce was reduced, allowing individuals to focus on other company activities. Similarly, full backups were achieved by using up to 30 percent less storage space. "Today our backup base is more robust, we have a longer retention time, we have replication and the confidence that in the face of any contingency we can get up quickly. Everything is done in a more organized and reliable manner. Many things have been solved for us, especially data integrity and availability," said Marroquin.

To learn more about Veeam's solutions for data back up and replication, see our interview with Abelardo Lara, Country Manager of Veeam Software, and our interview with Kenneth Christopher Sr. Director Americas Cloud Sales of Veeam Software.

Photo by:   R/DV/RS

You May Like

Most popular

Newsletter