Catholic Education in Western Australia (CEWA) is the second-largest non-government education provider in the state, educating almost 17% of all school-aged children across 162 schools and colleges. For years CEWA has pioneered digital solutions to support a student-centered approach to education. From iPads in classrooms to personalized AI-enhanced learning, the organization seeks innovative ways to incorporate technology into teaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lee Swift, CISO, CEWA, said, \u201cWe see cloud-based services as a powerful way to offer students the benefits of the latest technology without sending our costs soaring. As part of that strategy, we\u2019ve migrated most of the on-premises file shares and mail servers at our schools to Microsoft 365.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Including students, teachers and staff, CEWA now has more than 90,000 Microsoft 365 users and over 1 PB of data on the platform. Data volumes continue to grow and some must be retained for more than 99 years for compliance. As its Microsoft 365 data expanded, CEWA recognised that native backup capabilities could no longer deliver on retention and recovery requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen education providers in Australia suffer cyberattacks that take months to recover from,\u201d said Swift. \u201cTo mitigate our risk and maintain a strong compliance posture, we wanted to deliver enhanced protection for our Microsoft 365 accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
CEWA had already relied on Veeam Data Platform to protect over 60 VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V environments across more than 300 on-premises servers. Based on that experience, it selected Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom the very start of the relationship, Veeam has always gone out of their way to understand our strategic direction and give us what we need to achieve our goals,\u201d said Mike Kovacevic, CIO, CEWA. \u201cWhen we started the search for a data protection solution for Microsoft 365, Veeam knew exactly what we were looking for. And when we compared the features, market maturity and expert reviews of Veeam with solutions from other vendors, the best choice was clear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Working closely with Microsoft, Veeam helped CEWA configure the solution and begin backing up Microsoft 365 accounts in less than an hour. \u201cThe setup process was incredible \u2014 I didn\u2019t realize just how quick it would be,\u201d said Swift. \u201cWith over 90,000 Microsoft 365 accounts to back up, we were anticipating a months-long project. In fact, setup took just 40 minutes. We were blown away by how easy it was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kovacevic added: \u201cOur Veeam deployment was so fast and smooth that we were able to bring forward other digital initiatives. This included centralising privacy and security impact assessments for new AI and edtech tools \u2014 eliminating the need for each individual school to duplicate this work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With Veeam, CEWA can now retain Microsoft 365 data indefinitely and recover it on demand, meeting the highest standards for data protection in Australia including the Essential Eight cybersecurity framework. Looking ahead, CEWA plans to empower school IT managers to recover student data themselves, with access controls and audit trails ensuring compliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Swift said: \u201cTo further strengthen our data resilience, we\u2019re now looking to adopt a multi-cloud strategy \u2014 storing a copy of our Microsoft 365 data with a second cloud provider. We\u2019re looking forward to working with Veeam to make our multi-cloud vision a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Results<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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