Broward County Public Schools Enhances Disaster Recovery After Deploying Veeam for Data Backup and Protection

Broward County Public Schools implements Veeam to mitigate the risks associated with data loss while also supporting compliance with FERPA, HIPAA and Florida’s Sunshine Law

Veeam Software, the leader in Backup solutions that deliver Cloud Data Management, announced Broward County Public Schools replaced its legacy backup solution with Veeam Availability Suite to eliminate the risk of data loss and modernize its data backup and recovery system to comply with federal and state regulatory requirements. The district deployed Veeam Availability Suite, enabling it to replicate data to Azure Blob and back up VMware vSphere virtual machines on-premises from NetApp FAS and AFF-A300 storage snapshots for fast, local recovery. As a result, Broward County Public Schools is saving $80,000 annually in disaster recovery (DR) costs.

As the sixth largest school district in the nation, and the second largest in Florida, Broward County Public Schools serves a diverse population of more than 260,000 students representing 171 countries and 151 languages. Established in 1962, the district operates 333 schools and employs 33,000 teachers and staff. The district relies heavily on data to not only measure students’ progress but also drive digital transformation initiatives such as incorporating personal computing devices and implementing an online curriculum for customized learning.

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“Data is our lifeline in more ways than one. From driving our digital transformation and providing actionable insights to keeping our curriculum new and relevant, our data was growing quickly,” said Tamecka McKay, Enterprise Infrastructure Services Manager at Broward County Public Schools. “We have a responsibility to taxpayers to deploy high-quality, affordable technology, and knew it was time for a change. Veeam is intuitive, reliable and easy to use, no matter how large our data grows.”

“When deploying Veeam’s Cloud Data Management, our goal was to mitigate the risks associated with data loss,” said McKay. “With Veeam, backing up and recovering from NetApp storage snapshots is unbelievably fast and easy. We have complete confidence that our data is protected in every IT system supported by the Infrastructure Team, including our ERP system that supports payroll for our teachers and staff.”

The Veeam 2020 Data Protection Trends Report notes that 95 percent of organizations suffer outages that last, on average, almost two hours, and 44 percent say downtime from outages has damaged their brand and integrity. Veeam provides Broward County Public Schools with a scalable enterprise data protection and management solution that safeguards the district’s fast-growing data. Veeam helps to ensure the district can maintain compliance with federal and state regulatory requirements including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Florida’s Sunshine Law. By providing advanced monitoring and reporting, Veeam provides the district with the capabilities it needs to resolve IT issues before they develop into problems. Veeam’s flexibility means it integrates with any hardware, software and storage, enabling the district to replicate data to Azure Blob and save $80,000 annually in DR costs. In addition to replicating, Veeam backs up 4.5 PB across more than 1,000 VMware vSphere virtual machines on-premises from NetApp FAS and AFF-A300 storage snapshots for fast, local recovery. Veeam also provides advanced monitoring, reporting and capacity planning capabilities, enabling the IT team to proactively delete old snapshots before they cause problems.

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“Data is a powerful tool for school districts across the country. As the amount of data available to districts continues to grow, they need reliable solutions that enable them to quickly backup and recover data while also complying with federal and state regulatory requirements. Recognizing the limitations and challenges associated with their previous solution, Broward County Public Schools made a necessary change to protect its fast-growing data,” said Paul Strelzick, general manager and senior vice president of Americas at Veeam. “We look forward to continuing our partnership with the district as their data continues to grow and they extend their data protection capabilities.”

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