Key takeaways
Challenge: A growing backup need combined with insufficient on-premise storage capacity and the need for an immutable backup in the context of NIS2 compliance and increased cybersecurity requirements in the healthcare sector.
Solution: Expansion of the existing Veeam environment with immutable cloud backup via Wasabi, with Epact taking care of management.
Result: A retention period that has been extended from 14 to 30 to 35 days for servers and 1 year for M365 data. For example, the hospital has a secure vault for critical care data and a proven recovery process that works easily and quickly in practice.
Conclusion: For Heilig Hart Tienen, choosing managed cloud backup (for both servers and M365) with Epact and Veeam was a logical step in their growth path to a more robust and compliant IT environment. Epact's familiar cooperation, local presence and technical expertise were the deciding factors.
Heilig Hart Tienen is a regional hospital where the reliability and continuity of the IT environment are not a nice-to-have, but an absolute requirement. When patient data and critical care processes are at stake, the bar for data protection is particularly high. The IT infrastructure team of four people is responsible for the entire technical landscape: PCs, servers, network, storage and all underlying systems.
The challenge: more safety, more capacity, more compliance
The IT team at Heilig Hart was already working with a backup environment on its own infrastructure, but the situation required reinforcement in several areas at the same time.
First and foremost, there was the capacity demand. The existing on-premise backup cluster no longer provided sufficient space to maintain immutable backups locally. Expanding on-premise proved cumbersome and costly, while the cloud offered an easier and scalable alternative.
In addition, the pressure from regulations was increasing. As a healthcare institution, Heilig Hart Tienen falls under the highest category of security environments and the organization must comply with the NIS2 directive. One of the concrete requirements is having an immutable backup: an immutable copy of data that cannot be modified or deleted, even in the event of a cyber attack or ransomware incident.
Finally, wider risk awareness also played a role. A backup that is only stored locally is vulnerable in the event of a serious incident. An external, immutable copy in the cloud provides an additional safety net that enables rapid recovery when it really matters.
The solution: immutable cloud backups with Veeam and Wasabi, managed by ePact
Choosing Veeam as a backup partner was obvious: the hospital had been working with the platform for some time and had good experiences with it. What was missing was a suitable cloud destination for the immutable copy.
Epact brought Wasabi as a cloud storage partner. Compared to the major public cloud providers, Wasabi offers a more local alternative at a competitive price, which is a relevant distinction for a healthcare institution with data protection obligations.
The implementation itself went smoothly. Epact linked Wasabi cloud storage to the existing Veeam environment and fully configured and provisioned. For the hospital's IT team, the decision to put this into a managed model was easy: Epact had all the expertise in-house and the small infrastructure team was able to spend its time better than managing backups.
The result: longer retention, proven recovery and peace of mind
The impact is concrete and immediate. Where the hospital used to keep a 14-day backup history, today the team has a secure vault with 30 to 35 days of data for the server workload. The M365 backups even have a standard retention period of one year.
This extensive retention has already proven itself in practice. Not for a complete environmental recovery, but for exactly the cases that occur most frequently in daily IT management: a folder that became corrupt, a file that accidentally disappeared. In these situations, the cloud backup offers a quick and easy solution.
The immutable nature of the backup also ensures that the data in the vault is honest, even in the event of a ransomware attack or other security incidents. This is not a theoretical consideration, but a concrete requirement within the NIS2 framework that Heilig Hart Tienen is actively working on.
“My advice to other IT managers considering something similar is simple,” says Geert Boffé, head of IT Infrastructure at Heilig Hart Tienen. “Make sure your line to the cloud is strong enough and that your firewall is properly sized. And really work with your partner, be open to their suggestions.”
What is it like to work with Epact?
“Availability and accessibility are very important to us,” says Geert Boffé, head of IT Infrastructure at Heilig Hart Tienen. “When we call Epact, the experts are immediately available. That's the advantage of a local partner: you have shorter lines of communication than if you end up somewhere in an anonymous help desk. The team's expertise is also a big plus. We can fall back on their knowledge and experience.”