KACST Providing Science Community in Saudi Arabia Cloud Backup as a Service

The Internet Services Unit (ISU) of King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), a government entity that coordinates and promotes scientific and technological research in Saudi Arabia, has deployed Veeam Availability Suite from Veeam Software, Inc. in order to provide the science community in Saudi Arabia with 24.7.365 access to critical data for research that fosters innovation and promotes a knowledge-based society.

BC plays a role in fostering technological advancements that will bring Saudi Arabia scientific knowledge and practice. Veeam lets ISU spend less time on backup and recovery and more time supporting scientific research and BC among the organizations it serves. By integrating with VMware VRealize Suite the Availability Suite automates Backup as a Service (BaaS) delivered by ISU, so that organizations in the science community can manage their own backup operations, including adding and removing VMs from backup jobs and restoring to a specific point in time.

The two most important components of science and innovation are people and data. Therefore, KACST created the Internet Services Unit (ISU) to provide people in the science community with 24.7.365 access to data. Without 24.7.365 access, they can’t carry out their collaborative research and develop solutions that improve society.

ISU provides hosted services and cloud computing to approximately 30 organizations in the science community, including universities, research centers, laboratories and government agencies. Each organization works toward a common goal: to transform the kingdom into a leader in science and technology. They have SLAs with ISU so they can maintain BC.

“If we fail to deliver their data 24.7.365, we put them at risk for downtime, and we lose their trust,” said Abdulmajeed R. Al-Osaimi, manager of the system and development department, ISU. “Downtime can derail their testing and research and can cripple their business processes. If they can’t access their data, we have failed them.“

ISU’s IT infrastructure is large, modern and virtualized on VMware sphere, VMware NSX and VMware vRealize Suite. The IT infrastructure is a powerhouse, but backup and recovery were not. Legacy backup couldn’t integrate with VMware vRealize Suite to provide automated backup as a service to the science community. And, backup and recovery were slow and unreliable.

“It was becoming difficult to deliver data 24.7.365,” said Ayham Rizeq, senior cloud consultant, ISU. “We became concerned about BC for the organizations we serve, so we took preventative action.“

ISU deployed Availability Suite to ensure the science community in Saudi Arabia has 24.7.365 access to data.

“Our job is to provide HA to the organizations that conduct scientific research and foster technological innovation,” Al-Osaimi said. “Veeam helps us deliver 24.7.365 Availability of the data that becomes the catalyst for discovery, economic development and social prosperity.“

Veeam integrates with VMware vRealize Suite so ISU can provide automated BaaS to the science community. It also provides reliable, high-speed backup and recovery, enabling ISU to backup critical data to NetApp storage often and restore it quickly. One of ISU’s favorite Veeam features is Instant VM Recovery, which restores from a backup in minutes.

“We have no problem meeting SLAs because of Instant VM Recovery,” Rizeq said. “Instant VM Recovery helps us ensure BC for each organization.“

Veeam also helps ISU with monitoring and reporting to avoid downtime, as well as capacity planning to forecast resource and utilization trends. It provides visibility into the virtual environment so ISU can detect and resolve issues before they become problems and impact the organizations.

“Non-stop IT operations is the new normal, so we have to make sure our organizations have 24.7.365 Availability of their critical data,” said Khalid Alfoaim, senior system administrator. “We look after IT so they can focus on advancing science and technology through research. Innovation and economic development is everyone’s focus.“