Mediclinic Middle East Boosts Data Protection with Veeam

Data protection and ransomware recovery provider, Veeam® Software, has announced a strategic partnership with Mediclinic Middle East, a renowned healthcare leader, to revamp its business continuity infrastructure and bolster resilience as it embarks on an ambitious growth journey across the region. Veeam now offers uninterrupted data availability solutions for Mediclinic’s diverse IT landscape through an all-in-one platform that caters to backup and disaster recovery requirements.

Raziel Peña, Senior Manager of ICT Operations at Mediclinic Middle East

“We view the Veeam solution as a robust tool to keep us at the forefront of healthcare innovation. It empowers us to provide exceptional 24/7 healthcare with significantly reduced recovery point objectives, thereby minimizing our data loss risk. Veeam’s solution not only enhances service continuity but also offers rapid support for our IT team and cost reductions that impress our finance department.”

Mediclinic Group, a globally recognized healthcare services provider with a presence in Switzerland, South Africa, Namibia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has steadily expanded its operations in the UAE since 2007. Today, it stands as one of the largest private healthcare providers in the country, boasting seven hospitals, 26 clinics, over 1,000 inpatient beds, and a dedicated team of 7,200 healthcare professionals.

Embracing Digital Transformation

To maintain its reputation for delivering top-tier healthcare services, Mediclinic Middle East embarked on an ambitious digital transformation initiative that harnessed automation, AI, and various other cutting-edge technologies. The initiative involved centralizing its Electronic Health Record (EHR) system to create a unified source of truth for all its clinics and hospitals.

Peña explained the rationale behind this digitization, saying, “Our digital transformation aimed to support our growth strategy, particularly through acquisitions. As we recently welcomed a UAE-based healthcare provider into the Mediclinic family, we are expanding our reach and striving to help more individuals lead healthy and happy lives across the continuum of care.”

The surge in data volumes due to Mediclinic’s growth necessitated a modernization of its IT infrastructure. An organization-wide review identified disaster recovery as a key area for improvement, as the healthcare provider’s expansion was outpacing its data protection measures.

Veeam’s Solution

Veeam tools were already in use at Mediclinic, and after a thorough evaluation of alternatives, Veeam’s backup solution was chosen for its granular control capabilities, scalability, and flexibility, aligning with Mediclinic’s plans for regional expansion. Mediclinic’s decision-makers were also drawn to features such as Continuous Data Protection (CDP) and Veeam’s proficiency in simplifying complex data management tasks.

Veeam now safeguards over 620 Mediclinic virtual servers, hosting critical applications like EHR, medical imaging, and research and development. For added resilience, Veeam performs full backups of Mediclinic Middle East’s main datacenter and takes copies of file servers at each location. Even the backup of Microsoft 365 applications is entrusted to Veeam, preferred over Microsoft’s native backup capabilities.

Since implementation, Veeam’s solution has significantly reduced the recovery point objective (RPO) metric, translating to a substantial decrease in potential data loss in case of a cyber incident. This heightened confidence supports Mediclinic’s growth aspirations, especially given Veeam’s rapid and highly responsive support. Custom security patches were promptly delivered by Veeam within two weeks when requested by Peña’s team.

Mediclinic has also realized cost savings and improved operational efficiencies as multiple backup systems have been consolidated into a single, integrated platform. This move not only reduced software licensing costs but also lightened IT maintenance workloads while introducing new functionalities. Equipped with a market-leading backup solution and responsive support, Mediclinic Middle East is poised for its next phase of growth.