Case Study: Syracuse University achieves rapid DR — 1,500 VM restores in 24 hours and 98% faster backups with Veeam Backup & Replication

University Recovers 1,500 VMs within 24 Hours with Veeam

Syracuse University, a private research institution with a 99% virtualized private cloud, faced a critical availability and disaster-recovery gap as it consolidated about 20 data centers and saw data grow from 345 TB to 1.34 PB. Its legacy backup tool couldn’t scale—critical VM backups took 48 hours, one in ten jobs failed, and the solution lacked changed block tracking and full VSS support—putting 24x7 access for 22,000 users at risk.

The university deployed Veeam Backup & Replication with PowerShell automation to protect 2,300 VMs nightly, sending nearly 1.5 PB to secondary virtual repositories and using targeted replication for large systems like Blackboard. The result: a successful DR test that recovered 1,500 VMs in 24 hours, backup times for critical VMs cut from 48 hours to about 1 hour (≈98% faster), scalable retention across 2 PB of repository data, and confidence in restoring the entire data center quickly.

Syracuse University

Josh Slade

Virtual and Backup Environment Lead