CASE STUDY
About the City of Sarasota
Distinguished by US . News & World Report as one of the 10 Best Places to Live in the United States , the City of Sarasota is a diverse and inclusive community located on the Gulf Coast of Florida . The city has approximately 56,000 residents and is known for beautiful beaches , stunning sunsets and internationally recognized cultural arts venues . Incorporated in 1902 , Sarasota is a place where urban amenities meet small-town living . services were down for 35 days , which was crippling . There ’ s great comfort knowing that if we experience any type of crisis , Veeam is our way forward .”
One way forward begins with the 3-2-1-1-0 Rule ( three different copies of data on two different media with one copy offsite and one copy that is air-gapped , immutable or offline and zero backup recovery errors ).
Veeam backs up the city ’ s 60 TB across 150 VMware vSphere virtual machines ( VMs ) and 12 physical machines on-premises and off-premises via tape and cloud . Some backups are immutable and some are air-gapped .
Rather than risk city services , we recovered our file servers with Veeam .
To ensure zero recovery errors , Veeam SureBackup verifies the recoverability of backups and Instant VM Recovery recovers from them in minutes .
“ Not one service or resident was impacted , and we avoided paying ransom . If we hadn ’ t been able to recover our servers , we would have had massive data loss affecting all facets of the city , and ultimately it would have impacted our residents .”
“ SureBackup and Instant VM Recovery are phenomenal features ,” Rodriguez said . “ Knowing every backup is restorable and can be restored in minutes is priceless . Both features help simplify proof of data compliance during annual audits too .”
Soon Sarasota tapped Veeam for additional ransomware protection . The IT team began sending backups to Microsoft Azure and immutable backups to isolated , hardened Linux repositories . The team also deployed Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 to protect employees ’ collaborative data – not only for ransomware recovery but also to support compliance with the state ’ s Public Records Act .
The Veeam solution
Rodriguez said Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 also simplifies proof of data compliance , and it supports compliance with the Public Records Act .
“ Complying with this Act means we must be able to retrieve Microsoft 365 data from several months or possibly several years ago ,” Rodriguez said . “ Retrieving items like Microsoft Outlook calendars and emails for compliance purposes would be difficult if we didn ’ t back up with Veeam .”
Veeam helps Sarasota guarantee city services are available to residents and employees non-stop . Veeam fortifies cybersecurity plans and ensures Business Continuity for the first time in city history . Veeam also supports data integrity requirements and compliance with Florida ’ s Public Records Act .
Veeam backs up the city ’ s 22 TBs ( Microsoft 365 files , documents and mailboxes used by 1,200 people ) onpremises . Veeam Explorers for Microsoft Exchange Online , SharePoint Online , OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams restore items quickly – further improving their ability to recover from ransomware .
Sarasota is a forward-thinking city regarding modern data protection . Sarasota aligned Veeam backup with cyber preparedness to ensure swift and efficient response to ransomware attacks ( and avoid paying ransom ). The city ’ s IT team knows that people , process and technology are the triad for a solid cybersecurity strategy .
“ We have full faith in Veeam and our ability to recover in a crisis ,” Rodriguez said .
The results
Sidesteps disaster to provide uninterrupted services to residents
“ Veeam has changed our city for the better because backup has become a key component of our incident response strategy ,” Rodriguez said . “ We know of another city that didn ’ t have an incident response strategy and suffered a terrible ransomware attack . City
“ By aligning Veeam backup with our incident response strategy , we can respond fast to a ransomware attack ,” Rodriguez said . “ Instead of paying an outrageous ransom that no city could afford , we simply recover data from backups .”
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