Multi-level backup against ransomware

The Sozialversicherung für Landwirtschaft, Forsten und Gartenbau (SVLFG) is a federal corporation under public law based in Kassel in northern Hesse and with 16 other locations. It is the agency responsible for providing agricultural social insurance and combines under one roof statutory accident, health, long-term care, and old-age insurance for around 3.2 million people in agriculture, forestry, and horticulture.

The Sozialversicherung für Landwirtschaft, Forsten und Gartenbau (SVLFG) faced the challenge of fundamentally overhauling its backup systems. The social insurance
agency has a highly virtualized IT environment with VMware. Due to the high demands on the user interface of the data backup processes, the IT managers were looking for a user-friendly and powerful backup solution. “We need a system that speeds up the backup processes, keeps costs manageable, and provides a high level of protection against ransomware attacks. In addition, the solution had to provide optimal support for our heterogeneous system landscape consisting of SAP HANA and VMware components,” says B. Hilbig, summarizing the requirements profile.

A two-tier system was required that combines a cutting-edge, fast, disk-based backup and restore storage environment with a long-term and highly secure tape backup
solution. Moreover, the system they were looking for needed to support the SAP environment at SVFLG. Due to the heavy workload of the existing IT team, the solution
had to be highly automated, with an intuitive user interface and administration.

SVLFG subsequently turned to its contractual partner Fujitsu, with whom it had already enjoyed a long-standing and trusting business relationship. Fujitsu, in cooperation with its partner Veritas, developed a detailed proof of concept (PoC) that clearly demonstrated the benefits of a new backup solution. Using Flightbox, which contains a complete backup environment, the IT team from SVLFG was able to spend four weeks rigorously testing the approach. This significantly reduced the time and effort required for the PoC and streamlined the test.

Fujitsu contributed its in-depth consulting expertise during the practical implementation of the PoC. The overall concept consists of Veritas NetBackup software, two Veritas NetBackup Appliances 5340 with 120 TB each, and two Fujitsu ETERNUS LT 140 tape libraries with LTO-8 drives. The all-in-one solution also includes the implementation of the systems, a migration concept, as well as training and documentation.

The superiority of the new backup solution was demonstrated in practical use: “The appliance approach has convinced us in terms of its high degree of user-friendliness
and performance,” confirms B. Hilbig. Combining the media server and backup storage in one appliance significantly reduces operating costs. Together with the cost-effective offline backup onto tape, this results in a multi-level data backup solution designed to defend more effectively against ransomware attacks. “Thanks to the new backup solution, we are able to back up a data volume of 60 terabytes within six hours from our main location in Kassel to the mirrored data center,” says a pleased B. Hilbig.