{"id":4386,"date":"2022-06-06T17:35:25","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T16:35:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/latam\/?p=4386"},"modified":"2022-06-06T17:35:27","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T16:35:27","slug":"naturgy-argentina-deploys-veeam-to-mitigate-risk-of-cyberattacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/latam\/2022\/06\/06\/naturgy-argentina-deploys-veeam-to-mitigate-risk-of-cyberattacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Naturgy Argentina deploys Veeam to mitigate risk of cyberattacks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Naturgy, a natural gas distributor based in Argentina, has protected mission-critical digital services with Veeam.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, energy company Naturgy Argentina knew it would be vital to adapt rapidly to continue to deliver excellent customer service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur business processes used to rely heavily on manual, paper-based work,\u201d said Maria Fricher, a member of the Systems and Architecture Technology team at Naturgy. \u201cCustomers typically engaged with Naturgy via our branches or service centers and received their energy bills in the mail. When the pandemic disrupted these channels, Naturgy got on the fast track to Digital Transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, Naturgy shaped end-to-end digital workflows-enabling customers to complete key journeys such as onboarding, payments and support online and on mobile. These new capabilities are underpinned by an on-premises infrastructure comprising 188 Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs) and 61 HPE bare-metal servers, containing approximately 65 TB of data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWithin a matter of months, the number of apps across our IT environment had almost doubled,\u201d said Fricher. \u201cMoving to digital customer services has made Business Continuity an even more important focus for Naturgy. Customers now expect the ability to manage their accounts online 24\/7, so our service-level agreements [SLAs] for availability have become much tighter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past, Naturgy used IBM Spectrum Protect to deliver data protection capabilities for its core business applications. However, the system made it complex and time-consuming for IT administrators to create, verify and manage data backups. Crucially, the previous approach led to lengthy restore times, which increased the risk of business disruption in a Disaster Recovery scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAround the world, cyberattacks on utility companies are becoming more common,\u201d said Fricher. \u201cTo avoid falling victim to ransomware and other cyberthreats, we decided to look for a more effective approach to data protection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Veeam solution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After reviewing solutions from a number of leading vendors, Naturgy selected Veeam Availability Suite as its new data protection platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn order to get the most out of IBM Spectrum Protect, you need a great deal of in-depth technical knowledge – it\u2019s not an intuitive system,\u201d said Fricher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith Veeam, it\u2019s the complete opposite. One of the reasons we selected the solution was our experience during the proof of concept. We deployed a free trial version and asked one of our junior team members to put it to the test. Without any formal training, he was able to set up the solution to create and manage backups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven though the Veeam solution is really easy to use, we don\u2019t have to compromise on functionality: we can protect our VMs and physical servers from data loss and cyberattacks from a single point of control.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with local Veeam business partner Commit IT, Naturgy deployed and configured the Veeam solution to back up its production VMs automatically. The company stores backups at both its primary and Disaster Recovery data centers, enhancing resilience in the event of an issue with its production systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstalling the Veeam solution took just a couple of days, and within a few weeks we were fully operational,\u201d said Fricher. \u201cThroughout the project, the support we received from Veeam and Commit IT was brilliant. Whenever we had a question, we knew we\u2019d get answers quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since moving to the new solution, Naturgy has reduced the time required to manage backup processes. Equally importantly, the company can now restore its business applications faster in the event of an unplanned outage or cyberattack-helping to ensure maximum availability for digital customer services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re extremely pleased with what we\u2019ve achieved with Veeam,\u201d said Fricher. \u201cWe\u2019ve already started a project to back up our network attached storage using Veeam, after which we\u2019ll decommission the old system entirely. We\u2019re interested in exploring other capabilities, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor example, the Veeam Backup Validator utility will allow us to verify the integrity of backup files without extracting VM data, which will make it much faster and easier to confirm that our backups have completed successfully.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n