Intelligent CIO North America Issue 09 | Page 74

INDUSTRY WATCH
Jeff Lampe , Senior System Administrator at Evergy , agreed . “ If Veeam backs up a system , I know I can recover it quickly and easily . Veeam is hardware and storage neutral , so backup configuration and management are automated and easy . Veeam is also flexible , so image-level backup is possible , which means recovery takes minutes , not hours . Veeam simplifies data protection for us , which saves roughly 20 hours each week .”
Veeam also supports compliance with SOX and Part 810 , a regulation from the US Department of Energy that controls the transfer of unclassified nuclear technology .
“ We can ’ t comply with SOX unless backups are recoverable , and Veeam ’ s encryption and access control capabilities help us comply with Part 810 ,” Adams said .
“ Evergy is part of the national electricity grid , so reliability , resiliency and cybersecurity are always top of mind . Veeam helps us check those boxes and ensure we can deliver critical services to our customers .”
EVERGY
Evergy provides clean , safe and reliable energy to 1.6 million residential , commercial and industrial customers across 28,000 square miles in Kansas and Missouri .
With roots dating back to 1881 , the company is headquartered in Topeka and Kansas City . Evergy employs 5,000 people and is a Forbes Global 2000 company .
Challenge
Evergy is committed to providing safe , dependable power . Its challenge was protecting the IT systems supporting power production and customer service .
Legacy backup solutions did not all offer imagelevel backup , and they weren ’ t storage and hardware agnostic , making backup configuration and recovery complicated and time consuming .
About 1.6 million customers rely on Evergy for power , so having a backup solution that protects and restores systems quickly and easily is critical .
Veeam helps Evergy prepare for the future too . “ We plan to utilize a Veeam feature to take advantage of Azure Archive storage to provide a better way to archive backups to the cloud ,” Adams said .
“ Not only could Veeam simplify and automate this process for us , but there would also be an annual time and cost savings realized because Veeam is more manageable and affordable than legacy backup .”
The results
• Protects the systems required to support power production and customer service . Veeam delivers what legacy backup failed to deliver : hardware and storage neutrality , image-level backup and fast , easy recovery . Veeam also offers functionality for Evergy ’ s future : a simple , affordable way to archive backups in cloud storage .
• Supports compliance with regulatory requirements such as SOX and Part 810 Veeam checks all compliance requirements : Backups are encrypted , recoverable and only accessible to members of the IT team who have been granted permission .
• Simplifies and streamlines data management , saving at least 20 hours weekly . “ Veeam is so fast and easy to use ,” Lampe said . “ Data protection doesn ’ t have to be complicated or time-consuming if you use Veeam .” p
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