Increased back-up requirements
Ricoh is a global brand that specializes in
printers, industrial products and digital
cameras. In 2012, Ricoh was recognized as one
of the Top 100 Global Innovators1
. It is the only
Japanese company to be listed in the Global
100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the
World (Global 100)2
index for 10 years in a row.
The supporting IT environment is governed
by policies set in four regions – Japan,
the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
“The Information Infrastructure Control
Department of Management Transformation
Division consists of around 250 members
who formulate IT strategies, put plans into
action and take care of system operations,”
says Toshiyuki Miyakoshi, Senior Specialist,
Systems Infrastructure Section, Information
Infrastructure Control Department, Management
Transformation Division, Ricoh Company, Ltd.
“We also develop the shared infrastructure
and primary systems in use by approximately
110,000 users in the group. Our policy is to do
the work in-house. There is no information
systems subsidiary at Ricoh.”
The Systems Infrastructure Section of
Information Infrastructure Control Department
oversees the entire Japan IT infrastructure,
including server systems, WAN/LAN/voice
networks, and datacenters.
“We have several hundred systems running on
our backbone system, which is built on UNIX®.
We also have more Windows®/Linux-based
systems in operation, but we’re in the process
of migrating these to a virtualized integrated
infrastructure,” notes Miyakoshi.
Over the years, Ricoh has worked with IT
partners to develop and operate its systems
on-site. Even though it had built a virtualized
integrated infrastructure in its own datacenter,
Ricoh continued to have issues with data
backup operations.