Packaging giant boosts global data resilience with Veeam rollout

Detmold Group has implemented Veeam Data Platform to strengthen its data resilience strategy and support ongoing global business growth in the food and retail packaging sector.

Operational challenges

Detmold Group, operating through brands such as Detpak, PaperPak, and Detmold Packaging Sales, supplies paper and board packaging to high-profile international clients including McDonald's and Subway. The company's manufacturing facilities are integrated into customer supply chains worldwide, making uninterrupted operations a priority.

Marc Koenecke, ICT Manager at Detmold Group, explained the company's growth ambitions and associated challenges. "We have an aggressive strategy for innovation, sales and business growth," said Koenecke. "As part of this long-term roadmap, we are now expanding our operations significantly in Europe and North America."

According to Koenecke, maintaining high system availability is essential in minimising business risks. "We see the ability to recover our systems rapidly and reliably as a powerful way to mitigate risk across our global business."

"We have a concept called 'million-dollar minutes' for some of our most vital applications, which demonstrates just how important availability and data resilience are to the business. A single day of downtime to a critical system such as our ERP or CRM platform could result in over $10 million in lost revenue, so we aim to ensure that our digital services are well protected," said Koenecke.

The company has invested in modernising its IT infrastructure, utilising hyperconverged Nutanix clusters for international business units and cloud-based solutions like Microsoft 365 and Salesforce. However, prior to adopting Veeam, managing backups with manual processes and freeware increased complexity and demanded substantial time from the IT team.

Implementing Veeam

Detmold Group deployed Veeam Data Platform to automate and strengthen backup processes for its critical systems, covering more than 118 virtual machines across three on-premises Nutanix clusters.

"When we first started with Veeam, we focused on improving the efficiency and reliability of our server backups," said Koenecke. "In each of the countries we operate in, we now use Veeam to replicate two copies of production data to network-attached storage [NAS] arrays. Veeam makes it very easy for us to keep track of our backup jobs and to identify performance bottlenecks in our hardware."

The company later extended Veeam protection to its cloud infrastructure, working with partner 11:11 Systems to deploy Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and store immutable copies of mailboxes and cloud data. Koenecke commented on this transition:

"Our partner 11:11 Systems offers us the powerful capabilities of Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 combined with unlimited storage for our data backups," he said. "Native cloud backup capabilities don't come close to the level of speed and granularity we get with Veeam. With Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, we can restore everything from individual mailboxes to large groups of users with just a couple of clicks."

Detmold Group also sought to strengthen protection for its Salesforce CRM system, which previously relied on tenant backups incapable of capturing data such as file attachments and custom fields.

"We were very limited in what we could restore using native Salesforce backups," said Koenecke. "Just like Microsoft 365, Veeam stood out in its ability to thoroughly protect all our Salesforce data, including custom objects, access permissions, and workflows."

User experience and ongoing support

Detmold Group has partnered with Veeam for more than seven years, with Koenecke highlighting the usability of Veeam's solutions.

"All our Veeam solutions are extremely easy to use — we just point them at the data source, configure and schedule the job, and they're all set," Koenecke stated. "When new people join our team, they are always up and running with Veeam very quickly. Over the years, if we have come up against a more complex problem or wanted to learn about new features, we've used Veeam University and the community forums to find the information we needed."

Veeam's capabilities have supported the group as its data volume grows 10% year-over-year, enabling Detmold to maintain two-hour recovery point objectives (RPOs) and recovery time objectives (RTOs).

"We back up around 2 TB of change data a week with Veeam, which is mostly driven by our planning and forecasting systems for manufacturing and logistics," said Koenecke. "Working with an industry leader like Veeam with an excellent reputation for data resilience gives our leadership confidence that our key systems are protected 24/7."

Real-world impact

During operational incidents, Detmold Group has experienced fast recoveries using Veeam solutions. "Using Veeam, we were able to restore our ERP database using a backup that was only 30 minutes old," Koenecke reported. "Less than an hour later, and we'd used Veeam to restore our ERP system into production. Having a single point of control for all our backup and recovery needs is a massive advantage."

The company is planning to further increase its cloud presence and continue its partnership with Veeam. "Looking ahead, we're very interested in deepening our partnership as we build out our cloud services. Veeam is always an easy sell for us internally because they offer clear pricing and strong benefits," said Koenecke.

Employee onboarding

Detmold Group has also found Veeam's solutions efficient for onboarding. "Our new joiners never have trouble getting started with Veeam," said Koenecke. "The solutions are really easy to use, which makes it very simple to train people up."