ECOM mitigates risk with data protection solution from IBM

With more than 150 years of market experience, ECOM Agroindustrial Corp. is a leading processor and merchandiser of coffee, cotton and cocoa, with ancillary agricultural operations in oilseeds and hogs. From its roots in Barcelona in the 1840s, ECOM has grown into an international leader with offices across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.

ECOM’s global operations rely on its extensive knowledge and experience in supply chain improvement, risk management, and client-focused distribution to create a valuable and profitable environment for suppliers, customers, shareholders and employees. Because of this, protecting enterprise resource planning (ERP) information is a critical part of the organization’s disaster recovery plan.

“Being at the first leg of the food chain in the commodity business, we deal with an enormous amount of data, primarily for the buying, selling and logistics of moving commodities, as well as with regulatory issues,” says Willa Bess Zandi, director, Information Technology, ECOM. “Every bale of cotton is subject to testing by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and we track a number of quality factors (bark, moisture, etc.) throughout the process. As a result, we need to maintain fast and reliable access to the data at all times.”

A view into ECOM’s divisional operations shows the scope of ECOM’s IT challenge:

• ECOM Cotton handles over two million bales of raw cotton worldwide and has a local presence in almost all major cotton producing markets, including the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Paraguay, Australia, China, Central Asia, West Africa and India.
• The ECOM Coffee Group has a presence in 20 countries on five continents, maintaining diverse offices to remain both flexible and innovative in developing new ideas on how to provide clients with the coffee that is best suited for their needs.
• ECOM cottonseed and oilseed processing operations in Brazil have expanded into a global operation that includes a total yearly production of 450,000 tons of sunflower, canola, soybeans and cottonseed.
• ECOM Cocoa has operations in the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland, Singapore, Indonesia, China, Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Cameroon, and cocoa processing plants in Holland, Malaysia and Mexico.
• ECOM Agroindustrial Corporation entered the hogs industry in 1993 in the Perote Valley in Veracruz, Mexico. The operation has rapidly grown to include more than 13 farms between the Veracruz and Puebla state borders.

Protecting critical data in remote offices

In reviewing the company’s disaster recovery plan in its South and Central American offices, IT staff was concerned. Local offices were responsible for backing up data on a nightly basis and storing the tapes off-site or in a fireproof area onsite weekly. Because of this, if a natural disaster or other catastrophe occurred in a region, local staff would have faced significant challenges in restoring data and resuming operations.

“As ECOM has expanded its operations globally, the risk of data loss and revenue impact became greater,” says Zandi. “We had to make sure our operations were covered for any issue.”

After examining a number of options, ECOM chose IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager FastBack software (formerly FilesX Xpress Restore®) to protect data on its Microsoft® Dynamics NAV platform, running on Microsoft Windows Server® 2003 operating system.

Based on the solution’s proven adaptive data protection technology, Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack provides a continuous, “lights-out” solution for ECOM’s remote offices. It encapsulates the mechanisms to accommodate continuous protection as well as frequent and scheduled backup scenarios, and is equipped with advanced recovery tools for the organization’s ERP application.

ECOM has installed Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack to replicate more than 1 TB of ERP and related data from its offices in Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Peru and Colombia to its corporate data centre in Dallas, Texas. For each office, the software deployment and data replication process was completed in less than a day, enabling IT staff to easily implement the solution during the team’s scheduled visits to each local office.

“We are configured so that if we were to lose a remote site, we can be up and running quickly off the ‘warm’ server in Dallas,” explains Zandi. “With Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack, we are confident that we are well protected in the event of failure.”

Since ECOM’s remote sites often face limited Internet connectivity, the solution’s selective replication technology is essential in providing protection without impacting other applications.

The solution effectively uses each office’s available bandwidth through multi-threading, bundling of small files and advanced compression strategies. In fact, ECOM IT staff soon plans to upgrade to the next version of Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack to take advantage of the enhanced compression technology. According to Zandi, this would provide the organization with more flexibility in scheduling backups and increase the number of times each day ERP data is replicated.

“Traditionally, we’ve avoided scheduling backups during peak work hours so that replication doesn’t conflict with video conferences,” says Zandi. “The new compression technology in Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack will enable us to automate data transfers based on business needs without worrying about bandwidth issues.”

Additionally, by reducing the number of scripts required, the new version will further simplify software implementation and maintenance processes.

“Knowledge transfer is imperative in a smaller operation and can be a challenge if you have tools that are difficult to maintain,” says Zandi. “Out of the box, Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack was easy to deploy and manage and the new enhancements will make it even more seamless.”

Recovering ERP data in under an hour

With Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack software, the organization can cost-effectively maintain data and business continuity. ECOM IT staff allots just 4 hours to bring up its entire ERP application and data back online if a problem occurs. This includes implementing any hardware and networking infrastructure resources required.

IBM Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack is essential in helping staff meet this target. The company has not had a real disaster but has confirmed through annual disaster recovery simulations that the solution will meet its business requirements.

“Most companies don’t test their disaster recovery processes because they are just too complicated,” says Zandi. “It was fast and easy to test Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack. You hope never to have to prove your return on investment because you hope to never have a disaster to recover from. However, if something did happen, the product would more than pay for itself. Using Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack, we can restore our ERP data in under an hour, helping us ensure that our staff can retrieve the data quickly and continue to work.”

Maintaining business continuity with advanced solutions

Like its ERP infrastructure, ECOM’s use of IBM Lotus Notes® and Domino® messaging and collaboration software, which supports more than 1,500 employees, is critical to its operations. ECOM has been a Lotus Notes and Domino software customer for nearly 17 years.

As part of its disaster recovery plan, ECOM leverages the advanced replication feature of Lotus Notes and Domino to automatically replicate mail, contact and calendar information from its branch and remote locations to its data centres in both Dallas, Texas and Switzerland.

“At our pace of growth in the commodity business, data protection is fundamental,” says Zandi. “Using IBM solutions, we can cost-effectively meet our internal governance requirements for data protection and know that our critical data is secure in the event of a disaster.”

Pull out Quotes:

"Using IBM solutions, we can cost-effectively meet our internal governance requirements for data protection and know that our critical data is secure in the event of a disaster.”
— Willa Bess Zandi, Director, Information Technology, ECOM

"You hope never to have to prove your return on investment because you hope to never have a disaster to recover from. However, if something did happen, the product would more than pay for itself.“
— Willa Bess Zandi

"Out of the box, Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack was easy to deploy and manage, and the new enhancements will make it even more seamless.”
— Willa Bess Zandi

Solution Components:
IBM Service Management Solution:

• Data protection

Solution Components:

• IBM Tivoli Storage Manager FastBack (formerly FilesX Xpress Restore)
• IBM Lotus Notes® and Domino® 8

For more information

Contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit us at:
www.ibm.com

For more information about ECOM Agroindustrial Corp., visit:
www.ecomtrading.com (link resides outside of ibm.com)