Business Need
OAT’s Cyber Security Manager wanted to consolidate the backup strategy across the Trust as they were utilising a variety of different backup technologies and storage locations. OAT engaged with Autodata to determine the best way to achieve this. The schools already using Veeam reported a positive experience and their backups were typically in the best health. Those using alternative solutions faced a variety of issues such as failed backup jobs.
Existing OAT contracts were a mix of licence types with various renewal dates up to 2026. To maximise their existing investments, OAT required a flexible licensing model to onboard schools as and when individual contracts expired. It was essential to ensure one Master Agreement was in place to reduce the complexity of managing multiple contracts and renewal dates. They also wanted to ensure that all schools were utilising one single backup vendor with one type of licence; rather than the existing mix which included Veeam Socket, Veeam Universal Licence (VUL) and Veeam Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) licences.
As part of the project, it was deemed essential for all schools to follow best practice and utilise the 3-2-1-1-0 principle. To comply and ensure full protection against threats such as ransomware/malicious deletion etc. they needed to implement an offsite and immutable copy of their backup data; a standardised deployment/best-practice guide to ensure each school could be deployed correctly; and a centralised view of backup environments to provide IT management with full visibility into issues such as failed backup jobs.
“Engaging with Autodata has enabled us to meet all our backup goals. Onboarding all our schools with a Veeam solution ensures that we are maximising protection alongside our investment. Cloudlake’s Customer Portal enables us to stay on top of alerts and ensures that all our environments are stable. Introducing Wasabi storage has provided extra peace of mind as our data is stored immutably and offsite, meaning we know we can recover should any of our schools be targeted by malicious threats.”
Solution
Since the schools already using Veeam were experiencing good results, OAT decided to consolidate their entire estate using Veeam as the preferred backup vendor. As an accredited Platinum Veeam Cloud & Service Provider, Autodata was well placed to assist OAT to achieve their stated backup-project goals. We worked closely with OAT to redesign their backup strategy, provide advice, and review policies to confirm they met best practice.
We implemented a flexible VCSP licensing model enabling additional licences to be added as required, via a centralised contract, with the same licence type and functionality for all schools. This reduces complexity, removes the need to co-term contracts, allows easy billing based around consumption, and consolidated all OAT’s backup environments under one master support contract. Autodata is Wasabi Technologies’ main UK MSP partner, so we deployed immutable Wasabi cloud repositories as part of the overall solution, meaning OAT sends backup data to an immutable cloud location providing additional threat resilience.
Result
Access to the Cloudlake Customer Portal (CCP) provides OAT with a centralised view of all their backup environments, visibility across all alerts, the ability to ensure each school complies with backup policies, and enhanced support with logs being accessed instantly by the Autodata support team. On top of this, OAT’s consumption is dramatically simplified as CCP can push licences to backup servers without the need for licensing files to be issued.
OAT’s previously disparate backup strategies are now consistent and centralised, resulting in a stable environment. Offsite immutable cloud repositories provide enhanced protection against threats whilst ensuring OAT complies with the 3-2-1-1-0 backup principle. They have a single contract that is easy to manage and uses the same VCSP licensing type which allows for ultimate flexibility and avoids any overprovisioning of licences.
