Global Manufacturer Adds Immutable Cloud Storage for Disaster Recovery

LEMKEN Cultivates the Future of Farming With Secure Data

Good farming practices have sustained humankind for millennia. But farming equipment today would be unrecognizable to the founder of LEMKEN, a blacksmith who opened up shop over 200 years ago. Today, LEMKEN is an agricultural technology and machinery manufacturer based in Alpen, Germany, and the crux of the business is data—gathering it, using it, and most importantly, securing it. 

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The rise of AgTech has shown how cutting-edge advancements in technology can transform some of the world’s oldest tasks, such as weed control or crop fertilization. LEMKEN offers a suite of AI-powered technologies that complement its physical machinery, including apps that help farmers determine the correct fertilizer spread settings or control the working width of the plow. 

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With sophisticated technology working tirelessly in the field, LEMKEN’s equipment produces a high yield of data across the company’s global footprint, all of which needs to be efficiently managed by the LEMKEN IT team.

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Unearthing a New Storage Solution

In the old days, a stolen plow could be replaced with a new one. Today, stolen data is irreplaceable without the right backup solution in place. Before migrating to Backblaze B2, LEMKEN was backing up its Veeam data to an on-site dedicated backup server, including data from technology products as well as Microsoft 365 communications and files.

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Then, in 2020, the company’s Active Directory system was compromised by a Trojan virus coming in through email, which wiped out about 70% of its operating data. “The only system that wasn't compromised was the backup system, so we got lucky,” said Ludger Demming, Head of IT Infrastructure at Lemken. “That’s why we began looking for a read-only backup system to put behind our backup server. If we get compromised again, our data would be secure on a storage system that no one could access.” They also wanted the storage solution to be outside of their infrastructure, so that in the case of a breach, they could easily cut the connection to it and keep intruders out. 

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Demming and team began searching for a new solution online, and their new CIO recommended looking into Backblaze. Not only did Backblaze fit all their requirements, but the team was impressed with Backblaze’s ease of use. Demming recalled, “For as complex as our infrastructure is, it was very easy to understand how to implement Backblaze. And that, for me, was a major selling point.” In addition, the fact that Backblaze has a data center in the EU made it easier for LEMKEN to remain GDPR compliant.

Planting a Test Bed, Then a Whole Field

Once a decision was made, the LEMKEN team ran a proof of concept with Backblaze. It took only two short meetings with Backblaze Solution Engineers to set up a small test environment. “Backblaze was very easy to understand and work with,” said Demming. “As easy as powering on a TV.” At the time, the team had just changed their backup software to Veeam Version 12, and as Backblaze is a certified Veeam Ready-Object and Veeam Ready-Object with Immutability partner, this made integrating their new backup and storage solutions equally simple.

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Demming and team then ran some performance tests, moving data over to Backblaze and testing it. They wanted to ensure that the connection to Backblaze’s data center in Amsterdam was solid, and that data transfers were fast and smooth. The team was happy with the results and proceeded to work with software reseller SoftwareOne to purchase Backblaze B2 Reserve, a capacity-based storage bundle.

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From there, implementation was simply a matter of setting Backblaze B2 as their S3-compatible storage repository in the Veeam console. “Backblaze made it very simple to go from proof of concept to the full solution,” said Demming. “We didn’t have to change the configuration or move to a production environment. They just gave us the storage, we moved our data, and that was it.” 

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In fact, the Backblaze integration with Veeam was so easy and the team was so eager to get their new solution up and running quickly that they decided to move forward before upgrading their local storage hardware. They’d previously thought they’d have to wait until that was in place to get Backblaze and Veeam up and running. When they later upgraded to a new HPE Apollo server, it was basically plug-and-play and no configuration changes to their Backblaze setup were needed.

The Lay of the Land

Today, the LEMKEN IT team has 440TB of capacity to store data generated by the company’s products and AI technology on Backblaze. At every global office location with a server, the team is running Veeam Backup & Replication, which backs up locally onto SSD disk and also synchronizes with the HPE Apollo server located at the company’s head office. They use Veeam for Microsoft 365 to back up data from email, chat, and documents at the head office as well. Then, the central system sends data to Backblaze B2 where it’s stored immutably using a write once, read many (WORM) model via Backblaze’s Object Lock feature.

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Plenty of Room to Grow

As LEMKEN works to innovate even more aspects of farming, the company is now set up to securely store an ever-growing body of data. Backblaze provides a seamless integration with the Veeam family of products, and the B2 Reserve capacity-based plan is predictable with the exact same dollar amount year over year. Most importantly, LEMKEN now has added peace of mind from an immutable storage solution. “With Backblaze, we have a more secure environment,” said Demming. “If the backup server fails, we still have access to our data. This helps me sleep better at night.” And as the company expands to new locations, like their latest acquisition in South Africa, adding new streams of backup data will be as straightforward as plowing a new row of crops.