Author: Eric Vasbinder  

ERPs Applicable:

• Vista

• ProContractor

• Spectrum - See Spectrum specific section

Trimble Viewpoint Overall Backup Strategy

Business Continuity Details for all ERP Clouds

Backups Across Multiple Datacenters and Availability Regions

Another, powerful part of our backup strategy is that we leverage multiple datacenters and availability regions in Microsoft Azure, a world-class datacenter provider with operations throughout North America and Australia.   Ergo, at any one point in time your data will be backed up in our hardened business continuity infrastructure in three Azure datacenters within the same region, known as Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS).  

In addition, we have detailed processes and capabilities provided by Microsoft within Azure to allow us to recover even from worst-case scenarios (e.g. asteroid hitting the datacenter).  For example, as mentioned above, data is replicated amongst multiple datacenters in the same region.  In addition, due to the distributed nature of Azure blob storage, additional recovery options are available in the event that an entire region in Azure goes offline for any reason.

Isolated Backups from Production Network Group

Critically, all backups are isolated from the enterprise network where a customer's Viewpoint products operate, stored in a separate Azure blob storage container.  This provides another layer of cyber defense versus the determined threat actors of today.  As such, customer backups are isolated and located in separate Azure blob storage containers from those used by day-to-day operations.  

Immutable Backup Solution In Use

As a related item, backups of customer data in our cloud are stored using an immutable backup solution, ensuring that accidental situations or nefarious intent do not remove those backups.

Annual Business Continuity (Disaster Recovery) Testing and Evaluations

Viewpoint performs an annual disaster recovery process test and evaluation as part of our annual SOC 2 Type 2 (SOC 2/2) certification renewal.

Business Continuity Details for Broader Ecosystem Products

Besides the ERP itself, Trimble Viewpoint makes available to customers multiple other product solutions that tie into the Trimble ERP; ecosystem components.  Many of these solutions are Azure Platform-based solutions.  As such, these solutions are built-in Azure-provided redundancy and internal failover.   These solutions include, but are not limited to, Viewpoint Analytics, Automated Invoicing, Team Project Management, and more.

Vista and ProContractor ERP Specific Details

One of the most mission-critical areas of business operations is ERP:  if your financial data and operations is impacted, your ability to do business is almost immediately impacted.  To alleviate these concerns, Viewpoint has designed our ERP Cloud to provide a solid, stable foundation that not only adheres to, but goes beyond industry best practices for business continuity.

Frequent Backups

The following mechanisms are used to back up your data:

• Every hour:  Database transaction log backups

  • IMPORTANT NOTE:  5 min DB transaction log backups are available for customers of our Enterprise Solution Bundle (ESB)

  • See here for RPO / RTO information

• Daily:  SQL Database differential backups AND Full Disk snapshots (Monday through Friday) created for operational disks in each customer's single tenant environment

• 35 Days:  We store 35 daily disk snapshots on a rotating basis

  • IMPORTANT NOTE:  Seven years of snapshot storage for backups are provided for customers of our Enterprise Solution Bundle (ESB)

Spectrum ERP Specific Details

The following mechanisms are used to back up your data:

• Every 30 minutes:  Database transaction log backups

  • 15 min DB transaction log backups are available for customers of our Enterprise Solution Bundle (ESB)

  • See here for RPO / RTO Information

• Daily:  Full Disk snapshots (Monday through Friday) created for operational disks in each customer's single tenant environment

• 35 Days:  We store 35 daily disk snapshots on a rotating basis

  • IMPORTANT NOTE:  Seven years of snapshot storage for backups are provided for customers of our Enterprise Solution Bundle (ESB)

Spectrum data is backed up today into either East, West, or Canada Azure zones and the containers used have Zone Redundant Storage (ZRS), similar to Vista ERP containers.

Customer Backup Solutions

Oftentimes customers will, to satisfy internal or external compliance requirements, need to have the ability to obtain regular backups of their cloud databases for Vista, Vista Web, and various reporting solutions.  To that end we have a couple of options that can be used to provide access to backups of your cloud environment:

• Option A - Automated Backups to Azure Blob Storage Container (Highly Preferred)

• Option B - Automated Backups to Customer-Managed Azure Blob Storage Container (Also Highly Preferred)

• Option C - Manual SQL File Database Backups through SSMS and IPSEC VPN or TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN)

NOTE:  We do not currently charge for data egress, nor do we have limits on the frequency with which you may pull data from our cloud.  As such, access to your backups will be at no additional charge.

Option A - Automated Backups from our Read Only Blob Storage (Preferred)

With this method, our team takes a static, public IP address from the customer's IT and then pre-approves (i.e. whitelists) it for access to SQL backups.  Once that is complete, your IT will be provided with connection string to use in AZCopy, with the Azure Storage SDK, or with Azure Storage Explorer.  You can then use that connection string to connect to a blob container specific to your cloud environment from any machine behind that pre-approved IP.  Your Vista database backups will be available from this read only container and you will then be able to download the backups at your leisure.

Steps to Enable

1. Customer IT:  Submit cloud engineering support case with the IP address that you would like to be pre-approved for access to your cloud backups.  If you would like to have the Vista Web and Report Server databases stored here as well, please ensure that is noted in your support case.

2. Trimble Viewpoint:  Whitelist IP address sent in case and provide connection string needed to connect to Azure Storage container for backups.

3. Customer:  Choose which method to use to obtain your backups, either manually through Azure Storage Explorer, or in an automated fashion using AZCopy or Azure's Storage SDK.

4. Customer:  Ensure your chosen tooling above is installed and ready.  For example, for Storage Explorer, you will need to 1install Azure Storage Explorer on a local machine behind the whitelisted IP.  This FAQ article has details on Storage Explorer which might be helpful here:  Uploading Data Into The Cloud with Azure Storage Explorer 

5. Customer:  Use the connection string to connect to the blob storage container and then download the .BAK file backups at your convenience.

Option B - Automated Backups to Customer-Managed Azure Blob Storage Container (Preferred)

With this method, the customer provides our team with a connection string to their own Azure blob storage container.  Our team then sets up a new destination for our backups.  This customer-managed blob storage container will then become yet another backup destination, receiving the same snapshots, differentials, and transaction log backups that our internal backup storage will receive. 

As these backups will be in your own storage container, you are then welcome to access and use them for any purpose at your leisure.  

Steps to Enable

1. Customer IT:  Submit cloud engineering support case with the Connection string needed for Trimble to upload backups to your blob container.  If you would like to have the Vista Web and Report Server databases stored here as well, please ensure that is noted in your support case.

2. Trimble Viewpoint:  Add new connection string as a destination for customer backups.

3. Customer and Trimble:  Test receipt of backups into customer blob storage.

4. Customer:  Use your, now fully populated, blob container as a source for backups to retrieve at your convenience.  

Option C - Manual SQL File Database Backups through SSMS and IPSEC or TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN)

With this method, you can use an already existing TLS Database Endpoint (TLS VPN) or IPSEC VPN connection to connect to Vista's database server.  You will need to have a pure SQL authentication account already set up as per this cloud FAQ:  https://sites.google.com/trimble.com/vista-cloud-faq/home/integration-technology/creating-sql-accounts

Once you have connected to the server over SSMS, you can choose a location on to which you'd like to have the backups stored.   Note, these backups will be tables and data as .SQL files (use option "A" for full .BAK file backups).  This also allows for automated backups from external scheduled jobs.  Customers also have full access to the Vista database, including custom stored procedures, UD tables, etc.  In order to do this, you will need to have an IPSEC VPN (or our new TLS Whitelist Database link) stood up between your network and Vista in our cloud.  Once that is done, you will have full access to the Vista database tables, as well as the databases of associated components like Vista Web just as you did on premise. 

Backups of Data Not Contained in Databases (e.g. RPT Files and Templates)

In any Vista installation, there are pieces of data that are never stored in a database.  These include Create and Send templates and Crystal reports .RPT files.  These items can be accessed over an IPSEC VPN by mounting the UNC path of the Viewpoint Repository folder.  To access that folder, please set up a Cascade account and request that this account be granted access to the Viewpoint Repository folder.  Here is a Vista Cloud FAQ article that will provide more details on this topic:  Will I still be able to edit the Vista database if we're hosted in your cloud? SSMS? Custom Crystal Reports? Viewpoint Repository? 

NOTE:  The blob storage containers in Option "A", provided to customers by Trimble, are READ ONLY, storing ONLY Trimble product backups, such as Vista.  You can go there and then download your backups of databases for Trimble products ONLY; nothing else can be done with these containers.  

They are not writeable and cannot be used to store arbitrary third party data.  Resultingly, they are NOT a substitute for Veeam or any other third party backup solution.

If you require a more generic storage space, please consider Option "B".

If you need storage for your own non-Trimble data, or additional login term backup storage beyond the standard 35 days we provide for Vista, please reach out to your Microsoft representative to set up your own Azure tenant and then purchase blob storage space from Microsoft, or you may, of course use your backup provider and storage of choice, such as Veeam, AWS S3 buckets, etc.  You may then store these additional backups in your own paid for storage at any time and to any extent you choose.

REMINDER

As customers do not have full admin (SA) rights to databases in our cloud, you will be unable to use SSMS to backup full databases in Option C above:  with DBO access, you can access and export your data using SSMS over the IPSEC VPN as mentioned above.  However, full SQL server database file backups (.BAK) cannot be obtained using this method.

To obtain full .BAK file backups of your Vista, Vista Web, PCC, or Spectrum databases, please use Options A or B, detailed above.

Summary

Given all of the above, with Viewpoint's Cloud, our customers can rest assured knowing that risks are minimized and that their data is highly available.​​​