Korean shipbuilding giant enlists IBM for major IT revamp

SEPTEMBER 17, 2012 — IBM (NYSE: IBM) reports that Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME), one of the world’s largest shipbuilding and offshore companies, has engaged IBM to build a stronger and more resilient IT environment around IBM’s advanced storage systems.

DSME has experienced dramatic growth since its founding in 1973 and has planned an aggressive long-term roadmap for 2020 with a revamp of its IT infrastructure as a key aspect.

“We look at IT as a strategic imperative for our business aspirations and wanted to work with a service provider that shares our vision and passion,” said Seung uk So, Leader of the DSME IT Planning Group. “Our engagement with IBM would help create a sophisticated storage environment, a critical infrastructure requirement in this age of data explosion.”

IBM will help DSME create a storage infrastructure built around four IBM XIV Gen3 high end disk storage systems and the IBM Storwize V7000 virtualized storage system. The systems will integrate with the DSME’s core business applications, including mail service, enterprise resource management (ERP) and database management, among others, and manage the company’s more than 255TB of data. The smarter computing solution will not only create an integrated storage environment for DMSE to better analyze and use data, but ensure readiness for disaster recovery.

IBM was selected as the preferred partner over HP and EMC.

IBM XIV Gen3 is a multifunction high-end disk storage solution with an innovative architecture that offers exceptional performance and scalability. It is also claimed tosignificantly reduce cost and complexity and enable improved performance to the application workload, such as virtualization, analysis, and cloud computing. Additionally, the system can optimize the storage performance of various applications, including database, email, online transaction processing, and ERP applications.

“IBM is working with organizations across the world to help them build efficient IT environments and enhance operational efficiency,” said Hyungsuk Kim, IBM Korea Storage Business Director. “By establishing the XIV storage system, DSME will overcome existing storage performance limitations and enjoy the benefits of improved performance and cost reduction. We are excited to be able to contribute to DSME’s long term vision and growth plans.”