Construction company TRC has deployed Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Cloud Connect to protect its systems and essential information, ensuring its work is able to continue uninterrupted in emergencies.
TRC is a construction contractor that focuses on infrastructure such as energy, communications and public utilities, all of which involve a responsibility not only to customers but also to the general public. They take these responsibilities seriously to ensure delivery of good quality, high standard work on time. Errors resulting in interruptions to work are not allowed.
“The construction business is primarily focused on infrastructure and ensuring proper project documentation, but what we’re committed to is leveraging the state-of-the-art technology to make work easier,” said Pavita Leesakul, Director and Vice President, Corporate Affairs Division, TRC Construction Public Company Limited.
TRC is increasingly using virtual machines (VMs) and now has 40 VMs. Since TRC has an increased reliance upon these systems, they need to be confident that the systems and data won’t be compromised, causing interruptions to their work.
“Once, our server went down as some of our equipment was damaged and data wasn’t backed up successfully to the DR site, so there were problems with some of the data. Although in the end we were able to recover data from another DR site, the risk was worrying,” Leesakul recalled.
TRC had never used a data backup and recovery service provider before and almost lost data as a result. Although it was ultimately possible to recover the data, this shows the importance of using a data backup and recovery service.
Challenge to TRC
Infrastructure is linked to people’s quality of life. Project delivery is therefore not just about quality and standards; the duration required for construction must also be considered. Delays in minutes or hours may affect society. The challenge to TRC was continuity of work. How could work be performed quickly, efficiently and on a continuous basis? Failing to work with a data backup service provider poses a potential risk of major damage to the business, business partners and society in general. Being equipped with Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Cloud Connect, which protect the company’s systems, allows TRC to recover data and makes it easy to return to work quickly.
The Veeam solution
TRC approached Cloud HM, a specialist in providing comprehensive multi-cloud services and Infrastructure as a Service for both domestic and global cloud, including IT as a Service for its data recovery solution. Veeam Backup & Replication and Veeam Cloud Connect were recommended to protect its systems and essential information to ensure its work was able to continue uninterrupted in the case of emergencies.
Veeam has backed up and replicated more than 10TB of essential data for TRC, which has not only made working worry-free, but has increased work efficiency and is saving time, where data can now be recovered and searched 10 times faster.
“We weren’t able to back up all our data before because we weren’t using a dedicated data backup and recovery system, but now every VM, workload and server is backed up, so all our data can be recovered,” Leesakul said. “Work can be carried out faster after using Veeam because we have departments in all regions within the country, not just our head office in Bangkok. Data can be recovered or searched 10 times faster and more conveniently. What used to take hours and minutes is now taking just minutes and seconds.”
Working with leading providers of data protection like Veeam and Cloud HM has enabled TRC to save costs. Use of Veeam solutions has significantly reduced costs in manpower and property rental of the DR site. Excellent after-sales service and support from the Cloud HM’s engineering team helped the design and also helped maintain TRC’s system from launch to date.
“Two other issues have also been significantly improved. Firstly, on manpower, we’ve saved 20% in human resources management costs as there’s been an increased reliance on the systems,” Leesakul adds.
“Secondly, we previously had to rent the DR site, but after transferring the site to the cloud, we’ve saved around 50% in costs.”
Veeam has also made it easier for TRC to prepare for future planning.
Leesakul said: “After using Veeam, our perspective on data backup has changed. It’s now clear that physical sites are no longer necessary. Regardless of how data is stored, there’s always a risk if the physical site is compromised, but after transferring the site to the cloud, I feel reassured and I think it’s safer.
“In the future, IT or digital services will play a greater role in business management. As our company grows, use of data recovery systems and the cloud will make business faster, more efficient and more convenient.
“And I believe Veeam will also offer other services to support our business, which will continue to expand in the future.”
The results
• Data can be recovered/searched 10 times faster. It used to take minutes; now it takes seconds.
Veeam backs up every server and workload. Data can be restored in minutes and seconds rather than hours and minutes, especially when using instant recovery, so work can be performed with greater continuity and speed.
• DR site management costs were reduced by 50% after the site was transferred on to the cloud and rental of a physical site was no longer necessary.
As rental of a physical DR site was no longer necessary, costs were reduced by up to 50%, and transferring the site to the cloud had also made data backup faster with a stable system and infrastructure, as well as a team of cloud service provider engineers who took care of the system 24/7.
• 20% was immediately saved in manpower costs, as systems could be relied upon more due to an increased confidence that operations would be able to continue without the need for downtime.
In fact, the construction business is primarily focused on infrastructure and ensuring proper project documentation, but TRC is committed to leveraging technology more to make work easier. After Veeam helped it to protect its systems and data, it has been able to rely upon them more and significantly reduce its use of manpower.
