EGAT improves restoration time 12x while reducing operating expenses with Veeam

The business challenges

Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) is Thailand’s state-owned power utility responsible for securing and providing electrical power that is essential to the country’s infrastructure. The need to continuously innovate and transform their operations as the leader in the utilities industry is a must.

“Today’s world has changed dramatically, and disruptions happen every day. Our challenge is how best to utilize digital technology to promote power system security and keep the cost of generating reasonable, so that people can benefit from it,” said Piyapong Worakee, Assistant Governor — Information Technology, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT).

EGAT upgraded their back-office system comprehensively by developing and improving systems such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), ECM (Enterprise Content Management) and various applications to facilitate a faster and more flexible work process with a focus on achieving higher performance.

To achieve the high level of performance, the business operations are heavily dependent on the system and technology to run smoothly. EGAT must ensure that there are no interruptions to the system as a failure in the system will affect not only their operations but will also set off a chain effect to their distributing agents, the Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA) and the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA), which in turn sell electricity directly to users.

“To prevent the damage on data and the risk in electricity power security, EGAT is always thinking and planning ahead on how to handle the risk for data loss. From our assessment, we need a new backup solution that is flexible, fast and able to integrate with various operating systems,” Piyapong adds.

EGAT’s previous data backup and restoration provider had complications leading to a difficult operation, such as its inflexibility, insufficient speed and inability to work with technology from other brands.

The Veeam solution

EGAT collaborated with expert consultants to search for the most suitable data backup and recovery solution to address the various aspects of their operational needs. Veeam Backup & Replication was selected to provide Modern Data Protection to their various systems and ensure continuous security and stability of electric power moving forward.

“Being one of Thailand’s leading power utilities responsible for the country’s power system security and power infrastructure, we can’t afford to risk data loss, so we looked for a service provider that specializes in backup and restoring data securely. Veeam is a perfect fit for us with their excellent performance and reasonable costs,” Piyapong said about the criteria of choosing a service provider.

Piyapong added that Veeam is user-friendly and able to integrate with IBM storage snapshot for production storage as well as Lenovo for backup storage.

“This allows us to have easy access to data and provides convenience to the wide range of users,” Piyapong said.

Data backup is vital for EGAT business continuity management. Veeam can be a tool to back up and replicate up to 700 TB of important data across 1,000 Virtual Machines (VMs) for EGAT, which takes out the risk of data loss if EGAT’s system is under a cyberattack. If the main site is down, the organization can still operate on the Disaster Recovery (DR) site instantly.

“We can now have some peace of mind in case that our system is damaged as we’re confident that the system can be restored in a short time and it can function continuously during an emergency, while important data are not lost,” Piyapong said.

Integration with Veeam has improved overall productivity greatly — data recovery time alone is 12 times faster than before. “EGAT can back up a large volume of data daily and restore or search for data faster, from an hour to only five minutes. The time saved is valuable to our corporation, as we can now focus more on other innovative projects,” Piyapong concluded.

After working with Veeam for some time, EGAT sees the potential for more collaboration in the future.

“We’re always looking for better investments and cost-saving measures, and Veeam has helped to resolve effectively,” Piyapong said. “In the future, we plan to discuss with Veeam about expanding our data protection strategies and supporting our future plans.”

The results

• Restoring data is 12 times faster, from an hour to just 5 minutes.
  Previously, in a drill to execute RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective), EGAT took hours to do it. After using Veeam, the time is reduced to only 5 minutes.
• Improved work productivity and efficiency
  EGAT is undergoing a digital transformation, so the way of working in the organization must also transform. Easy access to data is critical. Now 70% to 80% of the EGAT personnel can work remotely with confidence that the system will operate continuously and securely.
• Reducing operating expenses
  The immediate benefit of using Veeam’s backup solution is a lower operating cost. Veeam’s ability to integrate, support and protect the various systems EGAT is using eliminated their need for multiple services providing the same level of protection.
  
  Apart from applying modern technology with quick response, EGAT has strived to transform work process, human resources, and technology to become a digital organization. That’s why, in 2021, EGAT was awarded the Digital State Enterprise Development Award.