Suffolk GP Federation Cuts Backup Times 40% with Object First

Introduction

Suffolk GP Federation is a not-for-profit comprising 57 GP surgeries in Suffolk, founded in 2007 to better organise primary care and support surgeries with HR, training, and NHS clinical services. Entrusted with the sensitive data of over 600,000 patients, the Federation faced a growing ransomware risk. The promise of backup storage with Absolute Immutability, seamless Veeam integration, and rapid recovery for critical systems ultimately led the Federation to work with Object First.

Challenges

Suffolk GP Federation previously relied on NAS devices using SMB shares for its backups, resulting in several issues:

• Security concerns: A lack of immutability meant backup data could easily be altered or deleted
• Performance limitations: NAS devices offered limited backup and restore throughput and struggled with Veeam's instant recovery feature
• Manual overhead: A manual power-on/off schedule to approximate protection often required checks and intervention

Solution

Suffolk GP Federation identified immutability, performance, seamless Veeam integration, and scalability as key requirements. Object First’s on-premises backup storage appliance was the best fit, with deployment taking place rapidly.

Results

Implementing Object First addressed all of Suffolk GP Federation's key challenges:

• Absolute Immutability protects backup data from tampering or deletion, safeguarding against ransomware
• Instant recovery allows the Federation to restore critical systems in hours, not weeks
• Faster backups, with backup times reduced by an estimated 35–40%
• An enhanced security posture, with Access Control Lists and IP whitelisting supporting micro-segmentation, in line with NCSC principles
• Reduced administrative workload, removing manual checks required by previous NAS processes