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Customer Success Story

Customer Success Story

ExaGrid-HYCU Solution Improves Backup Performance and Ends Vendor Lock-In for Kaneka Malaysia

Customer Overview

Kaneka Malaysia Sdn Bhd is an affiliate of the Kaneka Corporation group of companies, headquartered in Osaka and Tokyo, Japan. Kaneka Corporation has business activities that span a broad spectrum of markets ranging from polymers, resins, chemicals and foodstuffs to pharmaceuticals, medical devices, electric and electronic materials and synthetic fibers. Kaneka Malaysia is a cornerstone of the Kaneka global network and has been operating in Malaysia for more than 20 years. With six companies and manufacturing facilities, has grown to become the largest manufacturing plant site outside of Japan.

Key Benefits:

  • Better backup performance allows for more backup jobs, including during the workday
  • ExaGrid’s scale-out architecture fits into Kaneka Malaysia’s long-term planning
  • Improved deduplication allows for longer-term retention
  • The ExaGrid-HYCU solution is much easier to manage
  • Proactive ExaGrid customer support results in “less headaches” for MIS team
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ExaGrid-HYCU Solution Replaces End-to-End Solution

The MIS team at Kaneka Malaysia had found that it was difficult to create and restore backup jobs using their previous end-to-end backup solution. In addition, using that solution created vendor lock-in as it only supported a single backup application, which was something the team wanted to move away from.

“Our previous solution uses a legacy Java engine on the back end, despite claiming it became web-based with upgrades to newer versions,” said Ahmad Mohd Rudin, Assistant MIS Manager at Kaneka Malaysia. “We looked into other backup solutions on the market and decided on ExaGrid because it provides the level of deduplication we were looking for and also because it doesn’t end-of-life its product so we will be able to get more than a typical 5-year lifecycle.”

A combined solution of ExaGrid and HYCU was chosen as Kaneka Malaysia’s new backup solution. “Installation was very smooth, and it was easy to integrate the ExaGrid appliance with HYCU,” said Wan Aminuddin, System Administrator at Kaneka Malaysia.

ExaGrid enables enterprises to implement and scale HYCU with a lower cost up front and a lower cost over time using ExaGrid’s Tiered Backup Storage approach. ExaGrid ensures a high-performance HYCU implementation with scale-out growth model fast restores and fast backups that meet an organization’s backup needs.

"The time we spend on managing backups has been cut in half due to the simplicity and intuitiveness of the HYCU software and ExaGrid’s GUI controls… "

Wan Aminuddin, System Administrator

More Backup Jobs in Shorter Windows

Wan Aminuddin backs up Kaneka Malaysia’s data on a daily and weekly basis, and has been able to add a 12-hour backup job since switching to the combined solution of ExaGrid and HYCU. “Thanks to the efficiency of the ExaGrid-HYCU solution we have been able to execute backup jobs during the workday, where before our backups were limited to non-working hours only,” he said. In addition, Wan Aminuddin has been able to restore data quickly using the solution, and is pleased that VM boots are easy so that the MIS team can be confident that data will be available when needed.

ExaGrid writes backups directly to a disk-cache Landing Zone, avoiding inline processing and ensuring the highest possible backup performance, which results in the shortest backup window. Adaptive Deduplication performs deduplication and replication in parallel with backups for a strong recovery point (RPO). As data is being deduplicated to the repository, it can also be replicated to a second ExaGrid site or the public cloud for disaster recovery (DR).

ExaGrid Enables Longer Retention in Secure Repository

Since ExaGrid offers better deduplication than the previous solution, Kaneka Malaysia has been able to increase its retention of backed up data from two weeks to one month. Ahmad Mohd Rudin appreciates ExaGrid’s Tiered Backup Storage architecture, which incorporates a non-network- facing Repository Tier, where long-term retention is stored as immutable data objects. “ExaGrid’s Retention Time-Lock is a fantastic feature,” he said. “We feel very confident in the data protection that ExaGrid provides and that we are prepared to recover our data if we are faced with any threats like a ransomware attack.”

ExaGrid appliances have a network-facing disk-cache Landing Zone Tier (tiered air gap) where the most recent backups are stored in an undeduplicated format for fast backup and restore performance. Data is deduplicated into a non-network-facing tier called the Repository Tier, where recent and retention deduplicated data is stored for longer-term retention. The combination of a non-network-facing tier (virtual air gap) plus delayed deletes and immutable data objects guards against the backup data being deleted or encrypted. ExaGrid’s offline tier is ready for recovery in the event of an attack.

ExaGrid-HYCU Solution Saves Staff Time on Backup Management

“The time we spend on managing backups has been cut in half due to the simplicity and intuitiveness of the HYCU software and ExaGrid’s GUI controls which are much easier to use compared to managing a command line,” said Wan Aminuddin. “We also like the ability to create a local utility share in our ExaGrid system.”

The ExaGrid system is easy to install and use and works seamlessly with the industry’s leading backup applications so that an organization can retain its investment in its existing backup applications and processes. In addition, ExaGrid appliances can replicate to a second ExaGrid appliance at a second site or to the public cloud for DR (disaster recovery). Kaneka Malaysia’s MIS team also appreciates ExaGrid’s customer support model, as their assigned ExaGrid support engineer works with them directly to keep the ExaGrid system updated with the latest firmware and helps to keep the system running smoothly, resulting in “less headaches” for the team.

The ExaGrid system was designed to be easy to set up and operate. ExaGrid’s industry-leading level 2 senior support engineers are assigned to individual customers, ensuring they always work with the same engineer. Customer’s never have to repeat themselves to various support staff, and issues get resolved quickly.

About ExaGrid

ExaGrid provides Tiered Backup Storage with a unique disk-cache Landing Zone that enables fastest backups and restores, a Repository Tier that offers the lowest cost for long-term retention and enables ransomware recovery, and scale-out architecture which includes full appliances with up to 6PB full backup in a single system.

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