Specsavers changes lives through better sight and hearing, supported by data resilience from Veeam

Specsavers was founded in 1984 around the idea that everyone should be able to afford glasses and have access to high quality eye care. Digital capabilities are a key enabler of these services, and in-store teams use specialist diagnostic equipment to measure and assess eyesight and hearing. These systems produce large amounts of data, and as a healthcare provider operating in Australia, Specsavers must retain this information for a minimum of 10 years to comply with regulatory requirements.

“Our stores rely on digital diagnostic tools such as retinal imaging systems. These systems take high-resolution pictures of the back of the eye, which help opticians to detect potential health issues,” said Luke Kuret, IT infrastructure Operations Manager for Specsavers Australia and New Zealand.

“Each raw retinal image file is around 128 MB, which we reduce to 18 MB by creating a cropped version,” said Kuret. “Even with the smaller file size, we still need to store a massive volume of data across the business — around 3.5 TB for each store per year.”

In the past, each of the company’s stores backed up their own data to tape and stored it offsite. However, this approach presented several challenges. Manual, tape-based processes were time-consuming, and it was extremely difficult to verify that tape was being stored off-site. The company’s previous backup software was prone to failure, increasingly leading to additional labor and rework to ensure the backup was successful and viable.

“We looked for a way to streamline the backup and recovery process,” said Kuret. “We also saw an opportunity to enhance our approach by adding new capabilities, such as encryption and immutable backups.”

Specsavers partnered with Veeam to ensure its data is secure, available and recoverable — empowering the company to deliver high-quality services to millions across Australia.

“I had used Veeam in a previous role, and Specsavers was already using the solution with great success in our corporate data centers in Australia,” said Kuret. “Veeam was a proven solution that we had a great deal of positive experience with. When we compared their solution with other leading data protection platforms, Veeam was the clear choice to raise our business continuity levels.”

Working closely with Veeam and Veeam partner Champions of Change, Specsavers deployed and configured Veeam Data Platform to deliver data protection capabilities across its retail stores. This deployment coincided with a store refresh project, which saw the company equip its retail locations with brand-new infrastructure.

“We were already installing new servers, storage, and switches in our stores, which offered much better connectivity to our central corporate network,” said Kuret. “It was a perfect time to deploy Veeam in our retail stores. Instead of writing data to a cumbersome tape storage solution, we now continuously back up around 30 GB of data for each store per day from our retail locations to our central data center. We’re saving several hours a week on rotating and managing tapes, and Veeam gives us a central console to view our backups and address issues quickly and easily.”

From the implementation and beyond, Veeam continues to provide Specsavers with support and guidance to help it get the most out of Veeam Data Platform.

“Our recent addition of service is access to a Veeam Technical Account Manager which we have found to be invaluable,” said Kuret. “They don't just help us with deploying new capabilities, they also run regular health checks to make sure our Veeam solution is optimally configured.”

Veeam plays a key role in protecting data across Specsavers’ operations in Australia. In its corporate and supply chain environment, the company uses Veeam to replicate terabytes of data across a multi data center storage solution. For the retail store estate, Specsavers is now backing up a total of 3 PB.

“In the past, our environment was theoretically set up to follow the 3-2-1 rule, but there was no practical way to verify it was being followed correctly,” said Kuret. “With Veeam, we have a central point of control for all our backups, which gives us peace of mind that we are protected. Moreover, we now create encrypted, immutable backups, which gives us significantly greater protection in the event of a ransomware scenario.”

Veeam also enables Specsavers to recover retail systems and data faster. “We used to create file-based backups, which meant it often took a whole day to restore data,” said Kuret. “With image-based backups in Veeam, we can find accidentally deleted or corrupted files and recover them rapidly and even get entire VMs back online within minutes. Our in-store teams no longer need to concentrate on their IT systems, which allows them to focus on what they do best — delivering outstanding healthcare services to our customers.”

Looking ahead, Specsavers aims to leverage SureBackup technology from Veeam to automatically test data recoverability and to use Disaster Recovery Orchestrator to create and test its DR plans. The company always reviews the platforms that support its core operations and intends to use Veeam to support any future migration effort.

“As Specsavers we greatly appreciate the fact that Veeam offers support for a wide range of hypervisors,” said Kuret. “Aside from the technology, what really sets Veeam apart is its people. When companies grow, support tends to be the first thing to drop — but with Veeam, we’re delighted that we are still getting the same high-quality service we’ve had since the start. I can’t overstate how much we value that.

Cuts recovery time objectives (RTOs) from one day to one hour
“With Veeam, we can grab accidentally deleted files for our retail store teams in under an hour — something that used to take us a day or more,” said Kuret.

Backs up a total of 3 PBs, with 30 GB of data per store per day
By creating backups that cannot be changed or deleted, Specsavers mitigates the potential impact of ransomware attacks.

Saves hours of work every week on backup management and administration
Because in-store teams no longer back up data to tape and transport copies offsite, Specsavers saves several hours a week on rotating and managing tapes. “With Veeam, we have a central console to view our backups and address issues quickly and easily,” said Kuret.