NAKIVO Reduces Deployment Time and Minimizes Complexity for Seoul City Gas

Business Challenge

Seoul City Gas (SCG) is a Korean-based company that is engaged in the distribution of liquefied natural gas. The company’s mission is to supply clean energy to the citizens of Seoul, while improving the environment for their convenient day-to-day life. SCG is making an effort to develop new technologies for distribution, construction, and gas utilization. Furthermore, SCG continues its growth in the upstream sector by actively participating in foreign gas and oil projects.

SCG’s datacenter is located in their Seoul headquarters, and their IT infrastructure consists of six physical servers as well as approximately 40 VMware VMs. The VMware VMs are used to operate internal business applications, including the company’s accounting processes, GIS, a call center, as well as groupware, Microsoft SQL data, and infrastructure managing servers, such as DNS, WEB, DHCP, and development. In particular, the call center, GIS, SQL data, DNS, and groupware must be protected at all times, as these are necessary for providing efficient customer service. In the event of a hardware or software failure for any reason, normal business operations at SCG could be affected until particular servers can be recovered. Thus, SCG’s data must be available on a daily basis, and a VM backup solution is required to protect this data to ensure its timely recoverability.

SCG’s previous backup software was designed for virtualized environments and was used by the company for many years to back up their physical servers. While this solution was okay for the physical environment, it could not manage the virtual environment with the same efficiency. “With our previous backup product, we had to install agents on our VMware VMs, which was a time-consuming task. Moreover, the whole ordeal was complex. We had to spend a lot of time on backup administration, while we were also not sure if our backups could be recovered,” says Jeong-Hyun Cho, Representative of System Management. “Once we decided to move some of our data onto a Synology NAS device, we figured that maybe it was time for us to look for a proper VM backup solution that would offer us simplicity, performance, and integration with our Synology NAS,” says Jeon-Hyun.

Solution

Easy Systems Inc. a value-added distributor, recommended NAKIVO Backup & Replication to SCG as a replacement for their previous product. NAKIVO Backup & Replication is an advanced data protection solution that offers a multitude of features for VMware environments, in addition to providing integration with Synology NAS. After a week of testing, SCG purchased NAKIVO Backup & Replication to protect their virtual environment, ultimately because of the product’s ease-of-use, lower licensing costs, and Synology NAS integration.

“My first experience with the whole installation and configuration process was intuitional, light, and fast. When I saw the web interface for the first time, I knew that the management would be extremely easy for me. Installation of NAKIVO Backup & Replication on our Synology NAS proved to be successful, and we are glad that we do not need to purchase any additional hardware for securing VM backups. Instead of purchasing separate backup or storage servers, we use a single Synology NAS device to process and store our VM backups,” explains Jeong-Hyun.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication provides SCG with full and forever-incremental VM backup that is much faster than the company’s previous backup solution. Once a week, a full VM backup takes approximately 30 minutes, while forever-incremental VM backups take 10 minutes, once a day. “Now, incremental VM backups jobs can be completed in under 10 minutes, which is at least 4 times faster than before. NAKIVO Backup & Replication running on our Synology NAS box provides great functionality, improves VM backup speed, and provides great reports. Licensing costs for NAKIVO Backup & Replication as well as the cost of the Synology box, were lower than the licensing cost of our previous installation,” says Jeong-Hyun.

For Jeong-Hyun, screenshot verification is one of the best features of NAKIVO Backup & Replication. Screenshot verification automatically tests VMware backups and sends screenshots of test-recovered VMs. “Screenshot verification provides a guarantee for us that our VM backups could, in fact, be recovered if a disaster occurs, which is important because the quick restoration of our business process is crucial. With the previous backup product, we once experienced a failed recovery, so screenshot verification is a paramount feature to have,” says Jeong-Hyun.

NAKIVO Backup & Replication offers SCG a way to recover entire VMs, files, and objects with instant VM recovery and instant granular recovery. “Instant recovery is also a much-needed functionality, because not only can we recover entire VMs, but we are also able to recover individual files from VM backups with instant file recovery. When my co-workers require the recovery of specific files or folders, they can simple select them, push a button and in just a couple of minutes the files are recovered,” says Jeong-Hyun.

Results

NAKIVO Backup & Replication installed on a Synology NAS provides Seoul City Gas with improved VM backup performance, the instant recovery of entire VMs and files, as well as peace of mind with screenshot verification. With NAKIVO and Synology, SCG managed to improve their VM backup speed by 4X compared to their previous installation. With NAKIVO Backup & Replication, SCG can now recover entire VMs, files, and folders. Moreover, with the screenshot verification functionality, the company receives screenshots of test-recovered VMs to ensure that the VMs are, in fact, recoverable. Thanks to screenshot verification, SCG does not need to perform monthly recovery tests anymore. “In the past, I had doubts regarding the way in which our data was protected with the previous backup product, but once we switched to NAKIVO Backup & Replication, we now can manage our IT infrastructure in a more reliable and simple way. NAKIVO Backup & Replication installed on a Synology NAS provides us with reduced deployment time, minimized complexity, and improved VM backup speed for the whole district,” says Jeong-Hyun.

About Seoul City Gas

Seoul City Gas Co., Ltd.(SCG) was established in 1983, by taking over Seoul Municipal Gas Company, the first and only state-run company in Korea. In 1987, SCG has started to supply natural gas to residential, commercial, and industrial customers for the first time in Korea. SCG operates its businesses through three divisions: city gas supply division, overseas resources development division, as well as mobile division. Its overseas resources development division is involved in the crude oil and natural gas exploration business in foreign countries. Its mobile division is involved in the manufacture of electronic components, panel displays, in-mold decoration, and touch screen panels for mobiles. For more information, please visit www.seoulgas.co.kr.