Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

Welcome to vGRID – Your Trusted Cloud Solutions Partner 

vGRID offers industry-leading virtual servers designed for exceptional performance, unmatched flexibility, and high availability. Powered by HPE Synergy and HPE Alletra storage technologies, our enterprise-grade infrastructure ensures your business-critical applications and data are always secure and accessible. 

Cloud computing is an essential tool for IT managers seeking to manage the cost and complexity of their operations. With vGRID, you can consolidate resources, provision services faster, and optimise costs using advanced cloud solutions. 

As virtualization becomes a key part of modern IT strategies, choosing the right vendor is crucial. That's why vGRID uses VMware, the most trusted name in business virtualisation, to deliver reliable and scalable cloud platforms for your success. 

vGRID Backup as a Service (BaaS) Overview

vGRID's Backup as a Service (BaaS) offers a fully managed, cost-effective alternative to traditional backup solutions, ensuring comprehensive data protection both on-site and in the cloud. This next-generation service simplifies backup management by eliminating the complexities of maintaining backup infrastructure and consolidating on-site and off-site solutions into a unified system.

BaaS provides multiple levels of redundancy, making data recovery fast and easy. In the event of data loss or corruption, multiple backup copies are available, minimizing downtime, lost productivity, and potential reputational damage.

vGRID BaaS Key Components:

• On-site Primary Backup Store (PBS): A virtual or physical appliance installed at your datacentre with predefined capacity for primary backups.
• On-site Secondary Backup Store (SBS): A replica of the PBS for added on-site resilience.
• Off-site Backup Store (OBS): A high-availability off-site repository for backup copy and replication data, ensuring long-term retention.
• VM Replication: Data in the OBS can be rapidly deployed for disaster recovery using vGRID’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform.

vGRID BaaS offers reliable, efficient data protection, providing peace of mind with robust backup and disaster recovery solutions.

vGRID SecureStore Overview

vGRID SecureStore offers a highly secure and reliable S3 object storage solution optimized for Veeam, providing robust ransomware protection without compromising on performance or affordability. Built for backup and seamlessly integrated with Veeam Backup & Replication, vGRID SecureStore ensures your data remains safe and recoverable, even in the face of cyber threats.

This cloud-based storage solution is hosted in New Zealand's top-tier datacentres, utilizing Scality ARTESCA software and HPE Alletra storage hardware. SecureStore offers unmatched data durability through dual-level distributed erasure coding, safeguarding against node or disk failure without impacting data availability.

With strong TLS encryption and AWS IAM-compatible security policies, SecureStore allows secure access from virtually anywhere over the internet. It also supports cost-effective dedicated connections for fast, reliable access to your data.

Key Features for Veeam Integration:

• For Veeam Backup & Replication v12: SecureStore supports direct-to-object backups, VM Instant Recovery, Smart Object Storage API (SOSAPI), and scale-out repositories. With Veeam Ready immutability and Object Lock, your backups are protected in compliance or governance mode.
• For Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365: SecureStore scales as your Microsoft 365 data grows, offering a flexible and efficient storage solution for backup copies, with up to 50% less space required compared to block-based storage.

With vGRID SecureStore, your business benefits from cyber-resilient, high-performance storage that scales to your needs, ensuring data security and reliability at all times.

vGRID Microsoft 365 Backup Overview

vGRID's Microsoft 365 Backup service provides comprehensive protection for your Microsoft 365 data, ensuring that Exchange mailboxes, Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive for Business are securely backed up. Powered by Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, this fully hosted solution is built on local infrastructure within New Zealand's Tier 3+ datacentres, offering flexibility and cost control.

Key Benefits:

• New Zealand-Based Hosting: Your data is securely hosted on vGRID-owned hardware located within New Zealand, ensuring local data sovereignty.
• Cost-Efficient Licensing: Enjoy a low per-user licence cost and separate storage costs, so you only pay for what you use. User-Friendly
• Recovery: Easily recover data through a self-service web portal, with advanced recovery tools for IT teams to handle more complex scenarios.
• Comprehensive Coverage: Backup support includes Exchange Mail, OneDrive for Business, SharePoint, and Teams.
• Retention and Recovery Options: Retain deleted user data without consuming licences and configure data retention to optimize storage costs.
• Shared Mailboxes: Backups for shared mailboxes are included at no additional cost.
• Restore Operators: Assign Restore Operators to assist other users with item recovery as needed.
• Flexible Licensing: Adjust licensing monthly to match your business needs, whether growing or shrinking.

With vGRID's Microsoft 365 Backup, your critical business data is protected with a flexible, reliable, and cost-effective solution that adapts to your organization's evolving needs.

vGRID RapidDR - Real-time Disaster Recovery Overview

vGRID RapidDR offers a fully integrated Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) solution, leveraging the Veeam Data Platform and Veeam Cloud Connect to deliver real-time VM replication for on-premises VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V workloads. By replicating critical virtual machines (VMs) to the vGRID Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform, RapidDR enables near-zero Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), ensuring minimal downtime during a disaster. 

Key Features: 

• Near-zero RTO: Immediate power-on of replicated VMs in case of disaster. 
• Recovery Point Objective (RPO): Achieve an RPO of 2-4 hours, with options for Continuous Data Protection (CDP) for critical workloads, reducing RPO to minutes. 
• Preconfigured Networking: Ensures services are available immediately upon failover. 
• Flexible Connectivity: Access DR environments via the Internet or WAN, with no ingress or egress charges. 
• Enterprise-Class Infrastructure: Production-grade IaaS hosting platforms with enterprise-level hardware and support. 
• Integrated Management: Manage RapidDR through the Veeam Backup & Replication console. 
• Failback Capabilities: Easily return to your production platform once it's restored, with replication resuming post-failback. 
  
  

Locally Hosted and Supported 
vGRID RapidDR is hosted in Tier 3+ datacentres in Auckland and Hamilton, providing reliable local infrastructure. With staff based in Hamilton, vGRID offers high-quality support, ensuring seamless DR operations. You can connect to your DR environment through secure Internet or dedicated high-speed, low-latency connections. 

Efficient Network Performance 
After an initial VM replica, all subsequent replications are incremental, copying only changed data for faster, more efficient replication. Where cloud backup data already exists, replication from backup data reduces internet traffic. Dedicated network solutions are available to keep replication traffic off your internet connection, ensuring frequent recovery points without service disruption. 

Typical Activation Process: 

1. Identify the need for DR activation. 
2. Start failover plans via Veeam Backup & Replication or the vGRID RapidDR portal. 
3. Confirm that DR VMs are operational on the vGRID IaaS platform. 
4. Access the DR environment via Internet VPN or WAN. 

Typical Failback Process: 

1. Ensure the production environment is restored and Veeam Backup is operational. 
2. Schedule downtime and initiate the failback process to copy changes back to production. 
3. Restart replication to vGRID RapidDR to prepare for future DR events. 

vGRID RapidDR provides a simple, cost-effective, and efficient solution for disaster recovery, backed by a team of experts ready to assist when needed.  

vGRID Veeam in a Box (ViaB) Overview

vGRID Veeam in a Box (ViaB) provides a suitably sized on-premises appliance that is suitable for backing up on-premises virtual and physical workloads.  The appliance runs the latest version of Veeam Backup & Replication software and includes all necessary licensing as part of the bundle.  The hardware, operating system, and Veeam software are supported by vGRID.  The configuration, management, and monitoring of Veeam Backup & Replication jobs can be provided by vGRID, the Partner, or the customer depending on requirements.
 
The appliance is sized based on the customers forecasted requirements and stores backup data locally as well as copying this data to vGRID for off-site backup storage.  The solution can be further extended to provide vGRID Rapid DR for short recovery time objects for Disaster Recovery as a Service.
 
Pricing is available for 1, 2 or 3 year terms.

vGRID SecureArchive Overview

vGRID SecureArchive is a Next Generation backup storage service that uses HPE StoreOnce virtual appliances to deliver an on-premises and in-Cloud deduplicated storage solution.  It works exclusively with Veeam Backup & Replication to provide exceptional storage efficiency of long term backup data.  Large amounts of backup data can be quickly copied off-site using a standard Internet connection.  With on-premises and in-cloud archives with built-in data immutability, customer data is resilient and protected from accidental deletion or ransomware attack.
 
vGRID deliver one or more on-premises storage appliances that can be configured with the necessary storage roles that make up the SecureArchive solution.  These are presented to the customers Veeam Backup & Replication server as repositories for Backup, Backup Copy, and Storage Copy jobs.  The available on-premises storage roles are:

• Rapid Backup Store (RBS): This is a Windows ReFS or Linux XFS virtual appliance used as a Backup job target.  It supports block cloning for storage efficiency and is suitable for short-term retention of data.  It can support frequent (hourly) backup jobs.  This is required where the customer does not have suitable storage for backup jobs.
• Primary Backup Store (PBS): This is the on-premises HPE StoreOnce virtual appliance.  It provides exceptional storage efficiency and is intended as a backup copy job target.  This is best for long term retention of backup data and is the source repository for off-site catalyst copy jobs to an OBS or CBS.  The PBS is immutable and will protect restore points from deletion for the retention period configured in the backup copy jobs.

An Aruba SDWAN appliance is supplied to facilitate a secure connection back to vGRID to deliver the Cloud based storage repositories.  The available cloud-based storage roles are:

• Cloud Backup Store (CBS): This is a vGRID SecureStore cloud-based Object Storage bucket where HPE StoreOnce data is stored.  Using a Veeam Storage Copy job this uses the StoreOnce Catalyst copy protocol to efficiently copy only change data to the CBS.  This saves on bandwidth and target storage utilisation.  The CBS will match the immutability configured in the source PBS.
• Off-site Backup Store (OBS):  This is a cloud-based HPE StoreOnce virtual appliance.  It can be targeted the same as a PBS with both Storage Copy jobs and Backup Copy jobs giving more flexible options at a slightly higher cost.  It also has the benefit of being available as a source for VM replication for efficient DRaaS which the CBS cannot be used for.  The OBS is immutable and will protect restore points from deletion for the entire retention period configured in the source PBS or backup copy job.

vGRID SecureArchive is suitable for customers that have more than 10 TiB of backup data on their existing backup storage.  For smaller implementations the vGRID ViaB solution may be more suitable.