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September 08, 2008

Acronis Increases IT Efficiencies at the World's Third-largest Steel Making Firm

POSCO Co. Ltd., Korea's leading steel company and the world's third largest steel maker, celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2008. The firm runs iron and steel making operations in South Korea and India that are renowned for their high efficiencies throughout a physically huge and complex operational structure. POSCO relies heavily on an extensive array of Windows NT and Linux-based servers to deploy numerous applications for day-to-day operations. A massive volume of data transactions is processed by these servers daily, so choosing a fool-proof backup and recovery system is critical to the company's business health.

Challenges to Efficiency

POSCO needed a way to address clear inefficiencies in its backup and recovery regime. As things stood, the act of terminating a server to run a backup inconvenienced internal users and threatened business continuity. The company sought a way to avoid having to bringing down the network connecting its Seoul headquarters and three other cities just to complete a backup. The firm was also searching for consistent and reliable recovery features that would reduce or eliminate system down time, but the existing system eliminated user access to server functions throughout the recovery process. The time had come to achieve backup and recovery efficiencies as impressive as those that had been implemented in other operations areas.

Product Evaluations

POSCO benchmark-tested several recovery and back-up packages available in the market to acquire an optimally cost-efficient and effective solution for their servers. They also factored expandability, maintenance service and return on investment into their evaluations. Taking all these requirements into consideration, POSCO selected Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server for Windows & Linux.

Acronis True Image Enterprise Server 9.1 ensures a prompt system recovery when a Windows NT or LINUX server breaks down. It also allows a flawless back-up or recovery of the entire system in separate individual units of files/folders. Users can schedule automatic backups of the system to any kind of hard disk drives attached to the server. Working from Acronis disk backup images, administrators can recover individual files without having to reboot the system, minimizing down time. A built-in Universal Restore function restores a failed server to totally different hardware and prompts backup on separate individual partitions of the system by activating them remotely Recoveries can also be remotely initiated.

Implementation increases efficiency

Tangunsoft Co. Ltd, the exclusive distributor of Acronis products in Korea, was responsible for the management and implementation of this project. Building and testing of the final implementation was completed late in 2006 and the software was installed early in 2007. Acronis True Image backs up 196 servers once a month and maintains them for three.

With Acronis software in place, POSCO executes OS image back-ups in real-time without having to terminate other tasks. This significantly increases data backup efficiency and creates a stable data protection system that can recover quickly from major data losses. Disk backup images are saved in various types of online hard drives, so it is always possible to restore to the previous last known working system environment in the event of system malfunction.

"POSCO seeks to boost customer satisfaction and business competence through efficient IT investment, prompt business actions, and enhanced efficiency. Acronis True Image 9.1 truly addresses all these considerations and is in our opinion the best choice to fulfill our system and business requirements," says Deputy Manager of POSCO Information Planning Department, Information Service Group, Kong Yong Deuk.

Extended Deployment

POSCO will continue to enhance the recovery and back-up system process, as this is a crucial step in the integration and management of the company's overall IT infrastructure. These improvements fit into the company's broader goal to enhance work task efficiency and customer satisfaction. "POSCO is one satisfied customer. We have optimized our IT investment through efficient system implementation and lower administration headcount," Yong Duek adds.