Data protection requires simplified unsiloed management across an organization’s storage infrastructure, instantaneous backup and recovery, for business resilience.

“Data protection should empower businesses, not be a burden to businesses,” said Jia-Yu Liu, Executive Vice President at Synology.

What if your organization has data protection appliances that integrate enterprise backup software, server, and backup repository into a unified solution? And add data deduplication and data immutability to the single-pane-of-glass management of all storage infrastructure…

At the recent launch of Synology ActiveProtect for Singapore and Malaysia, Thachawan Chinchanakarn, Synology’s ASEAN Regional Manager, said: “The demand for a scalable, secure, and user-friendly data protection solution has never been greater, and ActiveProtect is positioned to meet that need in Singapore and Malaysia. We look forward to seeing how it empowers enterprises to secure their most valuable assets with greater ease.”

With cyberthreats becoming more frequent, businesses in the region are increasingly prioritizing backup and recovery solutions to enhance resilience.

In Singapore, the rising wave of ransomware attacks, such as the 2023 incidents targeting key sectors like manufacturing and construction, has driven an urgent demand for stronger data protection strategies. The Singapore data security market is expected to grow by 10.68% annually from 2025 to 2029, reflecting the critical need for robust cybersecurity and backup infrastructure.

In Malaysia, the increasing frequency of ransomware attacks, such as the 2023 incident impacting government agencies and enterprises, has heightened the demand for reliable data protection. The local backup and recovery market is expected to grow steadily, driven by strict data compliance regulations and rising cybersecurity concerns, emphasizing the urgent need for stronger cyber-resilience among businesses.

Liao Mingteng, Information Department Manager, J-Shine International Logistics, commented: “In terms of data protection, ActiveProtect exceeded all our expectations. With ActiveProtect’s centralized management capabilities, we could reduce time spent on backup tasks and cut down on up to 80% of data deduplication, significantly reducing our costs.”

Reducing storage costs, restoring data instantaneously

After evaluating solutions from various vendors in the market, SBS – South Korea’s largest private broadcaster – decided to implement Synology’s HD6500 and 20 units of RS4021xs+ to meet their extensive data storage requirements, which amounted to multiple petabytes.

This implementation resulted in a substantial reduction in storage costs compared to traditional SAN storage. SBS utilized their Synology devices for archival purposes and as file servers, enabling their program production teams to access and edit audio and video files efficiently.

Data security was vital to SBS, particularly with the looming threat of ransomware. By leveraging Snapshot Replication, a built-in free package integrated into Synology servers, the media company was able to save snapshots locally every five minutes and perform restoration in seconds, establishing a near-instant recovery mechanism.

The versatile and flexible backup system has also streamlined complex configuration steps and significantly reduced data recovery time by more than half, further enhancing SBS’s data security measures.

Impressed by the performance, SBS is expanding its Synology server fleet to accommodate future storage demands – which may include ActiveProtect appliances.

Data storage is mission-critical

“In an enterprise environment, data storage space is a mission-critical area, so its operations must be reliable, and management and settings must be easy and intuitive,” said Kwak Ho-dong, Head of IT Planning Team, SK Shipping. “Using this perspective, we considered Synology and other products. We concluded that [Synology’s] stable, easy, and intuitive DSM system [makes] it incomparable to any other NAS product.”

File server: SK Shipping currently uses Synology SA3200D as its primary file server. This system caters to over 220 employees, with about 70 of them spread across domestic and overseas branches in Ulsan, Busan, Geoje, Taiwan, Singapore, and the United States. With active-passive dual controller modules and built-in Synology High Availability (SHA) service, SA3200D provides real-time, system-level protection.

If a controller module or service becomes unavailable, the system can automatically failover in under a minute, helping minimize system downtime and ensure service continuity. Not only does this allow IT managers to maximize service availability without worry, but the system is highly scalable, accommodating up to 576TB to meet future data storage needs.

Backup & recovery: SK Shipping has utilized the Hyper Backup feature on the SA3200D to schedule daily automatic backups to a Synology RS819 in their Busan data center. This provides remote off-site backups and replaces the previous tape backup process, resulting in a more efficient allocation of IT resources and significant time and cost savings.

Moreover, Synology has greatly simplified SK Shipping’s data restoration processes. The Snapshot Replication feature allows SK Shipping’s IT planning team to take daily snapshots of shared folders on the SA3200D and store them locally for up to three years. This allows company employees to independently restore data and revert files to any point within the past three years, reducing the workload on the IT department.

Actual measurements have shown that their restoration times, previously ranging anywhere from 30 minutes to a week, have been reduced to an average of five minutes, resulting in improved teamwork productivity.

SK Shipping has also replaced its virtual machine backup software solution with Synology’s Active Backup for Business (ABB). With this, 14 virtual machines running on HCI are backed up to SA3200D, allowing IT managers to view all VM backup statuses through a single interface. This also includes sending automatic status reports to administrators for recording and tracking.

ABB also offers several data recovery methods for different scenarios, including file-level, bare-metal, and virtual machine restorations. Virtual machines can be restored instantly to VMware, Hyper-V, or Synology’s Virtual Machine Manager (VMM), for quick service recoverability. Physical servers or virtual machines can also be migrated to VMM in the event of unexpected interruptions or in upgrade sandbox environments. SK Shipping effectively utilized this feature to promptly restore data, preventing any potential damage to critical operational data.

Deduplication: Furthermore, using Synology’s advanced global deduplication and incremental backup features, SK Shipping backed up 25TB of data to virtual machines while only taking up 1.9TB of storage, reducing storage by nearly 90% and reducing IT costs by 73%.

All these features – and more – are now integrated into Synology ActiveProtect appliances, for more seamless and efficient data protection and management.

“ActiveProtect is designed to address the growing complexities of securing critical enterprise data,” said Antoine Yang, Country Manager, Synology Singapore. “From regular recovery to disaster scenarios, the solution enables organizations to quickly and efficiently restore operations, safeguarding critical data and minimizing downtime.”