With ActiveProtect, GS Series, and C2 cameras, Synology offers robust, reliable, and easy-to-deploy solutions: Michael Chang, Head of Sales, APAC, Synology

The advanced technologies-led fourth industrial revolution has fueled the digital remodeling of businesses. To keep at par with the global pace of growth, organisations need to reinforce their existing IT infrastructure with efficient data management solutions, effective security frameworks, and improved service delivery. With its latest launch in Taipei, Synology has unveiled state-of-the-art solutions ranging from data management solutions, storages, and video surveillance-as-a-service. Michael Chang, Head of Sales for APAC at Synology discusses the nuances of their latest product lineup launched in Taipei at Synology Solution Exhibition 2024.    

Synology uniquely enables its customers to manage, secure, and protect their data. What are some recent innovative solutions that you offer to ensure end-to-end security?

In order to effectively address data protection, a robust, reliable, and easy-to-deploy backup solution is the key. Therefore, we have proudly launched our latest series of backup solutions, the ActiveProtect series which is designed to tackle challenges in three key areas – simplicity, management, and recoverability. 

ActiveProtect simplifies the initial installation by automatically applying the optimal configuration which requires only a simple setup of the administrator account password and the network which can be completed in 10 to 15 minutes approximately, based on our assessment. Moreover, managing backups can be challenging due to backup silos and fragmented backup systems where data is stored separately for organisations with multi-site or large-scale deployments. Therefore, typically a backup server is deployed at each branch to ensure stable connection and performance leading to a distributed management of backup tasks to streamline such processes. 

The new clustered architecture of the ActiveProtect manager allows one appliance to be designated as a management server enabling a single point of entry, single entry management of all distributed appliances, and backup resources across the organisation. Lastly, for organisations that are aiming to adhere to the ‘3-2-1 backup principle’, ActiveProtect provides robust recovery capabilities in the event of a disaster wherein users can identify and recover corrupt data and validate backups within their disaster recovery plans within a

sandbox environment. Additionally, the ActiveProtect appliance offers object lock features to achieve backup immutability, support scheduled air gapping, and enable a wide range of recovery options.

What strategy or approach gives you an edge over your competition? Also, how are you planning to expand your footprint further in APAC and Indian markets?

Synology has cracked the code that businesses or users seeking storage solutions are not just looking to acquire a storage space but they need tailored solutions that address their data challenges and business challenges.

This need goes beyond basic storage offerings. Three core values work as differentiating factors for Synology and make us stand out. First is the ease of management. Second is flexibility and scalability across different use cases. And, the third is robust comprehensive security. 

As an example, Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), one of Synology’s major customer groups often have limited IT resources to tackle their ever-growing data and business needs. Therefore, Synology has made deployment of solutions and data management very easy by offering a centralised control panel to support customers in monitoring their entire IT infrastructure including VMs and back-up. Our solution is easily scalable with expansion units and is coupled with enterprise-grade security software features.

Additionally, we have a dedicated cybersecurity team and a product security incident response team that ensure robust protection against security threats. In terms of strategy, Synology adopts customised approaches for different customer groups. 

End-users and companies looking for data management solutions can visit our experience centers to gain hands-on experience and receive professional support from our channel partners. So for industry verticals such as manufacturing, public sectors, media and entertainment, and education, Synology participates in industry-focused events and exhibitions to show the world the potential of our technology. We showcase our data management and backup solutions, boosting awareness for the Indian market. Every year, Synology holds a mega-event in India called the ‘Synology Solution Day’, annually offering a platform to unveil our latest innovations and share achievements with the market. Hence, we consistently share use cases, case studies, solutions, benefits, and customer success stories with our existing potential customers to increase awareness of our latest state-of-the-art technology solutions in the Indian market.

Can you share a few success stories where Synology helped transform data management and protection for its customers?

A notable example from Synology is our success story with Toyota Motor Vietnam. Toyota Motor Vietnam utilises Synology’s 3-2-1 backup strategy coupled with Synology’s storage and backup servers at their headquarters where multiple services run on virtual machines for their daily operations. To ensure data security and maintain on-premise storage they back up

their entire 80 terabytes (TB) VM cluster to Synology’s petabyte (PB) scale storage solution the SA-3410 which is designed of course to meet growing storage demands. To add an extra layer of data protection, Toyota performs daily off-site snapshots using the Synology snapshot replication. The company has set up five identical 4-bay Synology rack station units at

remote branches to serve as replication targets for their data from the VM backup server and, additionally, deployed immutable snapshot technology to mitigate security risks and prevent manual failures. 

As a result, this helped Toyota Motor Vietnam to cut down their data backup costs by 75 percent. This is one of the key testaments to Synology’s capabilities and how we could help customers worldwide.

Today, at Synology Solutions Exhibition 2024, what do you bring to the table? How do you envision the impact of your new solutions on the global and the Indian market?

Synology has come up with three new product launches with plans to expand in the future to fit the market needs of the industry. The first one is a new purpose-built data protection appliance product line called ActiveProtect. It is our new dedicated data protection solution that enables organisations to consolidate and centrally manage their IT backup tasks and recovery plans. 

The second in line, Synology has launched the new Cloud Managed Video Surveillance Platform, the C2 cameras that are managed on the C2 surveillance station. This is our VSaaS (Video Surveillance-as-a-Service) system. It provides scalable video surveillance with minimal on-prem equipment needed. This new cloud-managed lineup of cameras will enable new deployment possibilities while simplifying the setup time and maintenance for clients. The user simply needs to install cameras and the rest will be managed in our VSaaS solution. 

The next is a scaled data management solution called Grid Station or GS series of products. It is engineered from the ground up for performance and resiliency. It has a non-disruptive architecture so it maximises the data and service availability across updates, maintenance, and unplanned events. A key highlight of the solution is its scalability. It is scalable up to 96 nodes for more than 20 PB of raw storage per cluster and supports more than 150,000 current users. Coupled with Synology tiering, the GS series enables smarter data management capabilities with tiering policies on DSM, our operating system. Lastly, our centralised GenAI management. It enhances business productivity while simplifying billing and data privacy policies with centralised API key and identification management. 

What are your key industrial verticals that have been in demand in the Indian market? Also, how are you planning to expand your channel partners and improve collaborations in India?

Synology’s solutions are widely utilised across various sectors including manufacturing, the public sector, education, healthcare, and the media and entertainment. Hence, customers in these industries often leverage our solutions as their private file servers benefiting from the robustness and reliability of what we offer. Besides, many of them take advantage of our backup solutions software for enhanced data protection and security purposes. As an example, a renowned sports apparel brand in India is leveraging Synology NAS. The way they use it is they back up their hundreds of endpoints which include their PCs and laptops securely storing over hundreds of terabytes of data in the Synology NAS.

With regard to our channel ecosystem in India, we provide a project booking system, also known as a deal registration system to facilitate project support and safeguard the first partner who engages the end user and delivers the best services. This is to help our channel partners adopt healthy market practices in the Indian market. Additionally, we invite our channel partners to collaborate with us closely to establish Synology Experience Centers in various cities in India. With this collaboration effort, we provide the necessary support to our partners in promoting Synology further and joining in promotional activities. Furthermore, we offer partnership programs, encouraging and sponsoring our partners to participate in exhibitions relevant to the business and in specific industries. Also, we enable them to organise dedicated events to promote Synology solutions. Meanwhile, for primary industry verticals that we focus on in India such as government and public sector, media, and entertainment, we would sponsor our clients partially for the expenses and provide marketing support to promote the technology. 

So, apart from setting up the experience centers, what are your plans for the Indian market in the near future? What new launches from Synology await us?

As far as our latest launches are concerned, we have a purpose-built data protection appliance –  ActiveProtect. This is going to be released later this year in the Indian market. Next is the GS series. This is tentatively scheduled to be launched either by the end of 2024 or early in the upcoming year. Finally, our cloud-based video surveillance (VSaaS solution) – C2 cameras are also lined up to be released somewhere at the same time.