Follett LLC, a designer and manufacturer of ice and refrigeration solutions, replaced its legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) backup system with Veeam Availability Suite from Veeam Software, Wellesley, Mass.

The Veeam Availability Suite helped Follett increase its backup and recovery success rate for Tier-1 systems from 63% to 100%, eliminating system downtime for its mission-critical ERP system and achieving ROI within months. 

Based in Easton, Pa., with additional manufacturing operations in Bethleham, Pa., and Gdansk, Poland, Follett provides innovative solutions for the foodservice and healthcare industries. Prior to deploying the Veeam solution, its plants operated at peak performance until a problem arose with the ERP system. A critical file was overwritten and couldn’t be restored, taking the system down for five hours. While the IT team ultimately found a way to work around it, the situation startled everyone.

“ERP is mission critical,” says Michael Labate, system administrator at Follett. “Our ERP system runs everything from order entry to production planning. If our ERP system is not highly available, we stand to lose thousands of dollars per hour. Downtime is unacceptable. We all agreed we needed to make a change, and fast—unreliable backup and recovery was threatening the business. Several people told me Veeam would be the best backup application I would ever use. They were right. Veeam cannot be beat.”

Veeam Availability Suite combines the backup, restore and replication capabilities of Veeam Backup & Replication with the advanced monitoring, reporting and capacity planning functionality of Veeam ONE. Veeam Availability Suite manages VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V environments, including high-speed recovery, verified recoverability, complete visibility, data loss avoidance and leveraged data for streamlined disaster recovery.

“Veeam helps us meet customer demand and stay ahead of the competition by ensuring ERP is highly available,” Labate says. “Our backup and recovery success rate for all Tier 1 systems has been 100% since switching to Veeam. I can truly say Veeam is one of the best—if not the best—software suites I’ve ever used.”

Veeam Availability Suite also enables Follett to do something it couldn’t before—disaster recovery (DR) testing. Now, the company can test failovers for ERP and other Tier-1 systems to protect its most critical data. In fact, DR testing is now mandatory because Follett has become a public company and must comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Reports from the Veeam solution now enable the company to document backup and recoverability testing, with detailed test logs validating SOX compliance. 

Veeam also delivers complete visibility into the backup and VMware vSphere infrastructures, so the IT team can identify and resolve issues before they develop into problems and impact business.

“With Veeam delivering 24/7/365 availability of our ERP and other critical systems, we were able to eliminate contracts with third-party providers who were helping us keep hardware and software up and running,” Labate adds. “Veeam paid for itself within months. I can truly say Veeam is a set-and-forget solution.” 

“With the high demand for its top-quality solutions, Follett needs to manufacture non-stop to meet the needs of customers, and as a public company, SOX compliance is vital,” says Jeff Gianetti, senior vice president of North America sales at Veeam. “Veeam provides Follett with complete visibility of its backup and virtual infrastructures, so its IT team can identify and resolve issues before they develop into problems and impact business. This is a dynamic, fast-moving operation, and it’s gratifying to provide Follett with the availability they need to continue ‘icing’ the competition and growing their bottom line.”