During the exhibition, we showcased the data replication product series and solutions to the global market in collaboration with IT Force, helping global clients achieve efficient and reliable data management and accelerating their digital transformation process.

At the exhibition site, Information2 attracted numerous overseas peers and users for communication. Meanwhile, Information2’s series of solutions, including real-time data replication, scheduled data backup and offsite protection, cloud-native backup, disaster recovery with high availability and data rollback, and virtualization disaster recovery, won widespread praise for their powerful functionality and flexibility.

Five Representitive Solutions: Accelerating Users’ Digital Transformation

• Real-Time Data Replication

The real-time data replication solution leverages byte-level replication technology to achieve efficient data transmission with low latency and bandwidth usage. It supports data replication for various application systems and database services, meeting the needs of complex scenarios such as one-to-many and many-to-one.

• Scheduled Data Backup and Offsite Protection

The scheduled data backup and offsite protection solution provides flexible backup methods and multiple backup storage media options, ensuring comprehensive data protection and offsite disaster recovery capabilities.

• Cloud-Native Backup

The cloud-native backup solution is characterized by safety, reliability, and load balancing, providing robust support for data protection in cloud environments.

• Disaster Recovery with High Availability and Data Rollback

The disaster recovery with high availability and data rollback solution ensures business continuity and data recoverability through real-time replication of operational IO, comprehensive monitoring, and flexible switching strategies.

• Virtualization Disaster Recovery

The virtualization disaster recovery solution, featuring no agents, automation, and cross-platform compatibility, provides an efficient and convenient disaster recovery solution for virtualized environments.

Practices Across Multiple Industries: Recognized by Global Clients

Information2’s successful practices in multiple industries worldwide further demonstrate its overseas capabilities. From financial services and telecommunications operators to energy and automotive services, Information2’s products and technologies have been successfully applied in numerous large overseas projects, providing solid support for clients’ digital transformation and business development.

• In the real-time disaster recovery solution for Indian financial service provider Saggraha, Information2’s real-time data replication software i2COOPY ensured data consistency between the production and disaster recovery ends, safeguarding its digital transformation. 
• For Saudi telecommunications operator Zain’s offsite high availability disaster recovery solution, Information2 used i2COOPY for real-time data backup and i2Availability for high availability systems, effectively mitigating the risk of business interruption.
• In Indonesian mining giant PAMA’s CloudCDM cloud disaster recovery solution, Information2, based on a hybrid IT architecture, achieved data storage and backup on cloud-based EVS hard drives, solving the challenge of data backup and disaster recovery from local to cloud centers.
• For Chilean automaker Grupo Automotriz Cordillera’s high availability disaster recovery solution, Information2’s high availability disaster recovery management software i2Availability monitored the system operation status of the production server in real-time and could switch the application to Huawei Cloud’s international disaster recovery center with one click when detecting various anomalies causing the source end to be unreachable.

In addition, Information2 has served numerous other large overseas clients, including Malaysia’s LPPSA Phase, Nigeria’s Royal Exchange, Thailand’s AIS, India’s Disha Bank, and Qatar’s Meeza.

Challenges Faced

The joint-stock bank faces several key challenges:

• Massive Data Volume: 400TB of data poses a significant burden on backup operations.
• Small File Backup Dilemma: The presence of a large number of small files renders the backup process inefficient.
• Bandwidth Resource Constraints: The high bandwidth demand during backups can potentially disrupt the normal operation of other business services.
• Real-time Data Synchronization Needs: There is a requirement for real-time synchronization of incremental files to ensure the immediate availability of backup data.

Recognizing that traditional data backup methods can no longer meet its growing demands, the joint-stock bank embarked on a quest for an innovative solution to ensure data security, reliability, and compliance with regulatory requirements.

Solution: Information2 i2NAS Data Backup Solution

Information2 i2NAS, with its advanced technical features, offers data replication services from NAS storage to the target end, decoupling data from NAS devices and enabling data replication across heterogeneous NAS devices. This provides a comprehensive data backup solution for the joint-stock bank:

△Solution Architecture Diagram

•  Efficient Replication of Massive Data: The software handles large-scale unstructured data replication tasks with ease.
• Secured Data Transmission: Advanced data transmission algorithms ensure the security of data during the backup process.
• Cross-Platform Compatibility: The software supports heterogeneous platforms, eliminating the need for large-scale network modifications.
• Intelligent Bandwidth Management: Flexible bandwidth usage strategies minimize the impact of backups on other systems.
• Quasi-Real-time Backup Mechanism: Implements quasi-real-time backup of incremental files, enhancing backup efficiency and data availability.

Customer Benefits

Analysis of this successful case study reveals how Information2 i2NAS software effectively addressed the data backup challenges faced by the joint-stock bank. These achievements not only confer direct business advantages to the bank but also offer invaluable insights for data backup practices across the financial industry. By deploying Information2 i2NAS software, the joint-stock bank has achieved:

• Significant Improvement in Backup Efficiency: Successfully completing large-scale data backup tasks within the stipulated time.
• Optimal Bandwidth Allocation: Effective control over bandwidth usage during backups, avoiding disruptions to other business operations.
• Real-time Data Synchronization: Achieving real-time synchronization of incremental files, shortening business recovery time.
• High Availability of Backup Data: Ensuring backup data is readily available, enhancing business continuity and stability.

Conclusion

In the financial industry, adopting innovative technologies is crucial to addressing increasingly complex data backup needs. The successful application of Information2 i2NAS software not only enhances the efficiency and security of data backups but also presents new ideas and methods for data management in the financial sector.

The rapid development of educational informatization promotes the continuous deepening of the application of technologies such as AI and big data in education, scientific research, and comprehensive management in colleges and universities, bringing new impetus to the innovative development of colleges and universities. However, the consequent risks of data security and business continuity should be considered.

I. Disaster Recovery Application Scenarios and Solutions

With the profound experience in data security and business continuity management within the education industry, Information2 has launched a series of application-scenario-based solutions, such as data migration, backup, CDP, application disaster recovery and file sharing network disk, aiming at the application data characteristics and disaster recovery needs of campus card, educational administration management system, library system, email system, portal website and file system.

1. Disaster Recovery for Educational Administration Scheduling Online Courses/Systems

Scenario Characteristics: Important data; continuous system operation; frequent concurrent access from multiple clients. 

Client  Requirements:Second–level RTO of key systems; terminal unaware when a failure occurs; no backup time window; small impact on system performance; data loss close to zero.

In the local and off-site environment, build the application high availability capability for the educational administration and smart classroom system based on i2Availability. Through its sophisticated monitoring platform, the system can monitor key indicators such as process status, network connectivity, CPU performance and server health in real time based on the heartbeat line judgment standard. Once any fault is detected, the backup server will start immediately and seamlessly take over the work of the main server to ensure the continuous and stable service. 

Based on i2CDP, provide comprehensive protection for the data of the educational administration and smart classroom system. Whether encountering logical errors, hard disk damage or virus attacks, i2CDP can ensure the security and integrity of the data. When needed, users can easily restore data at any point in time.

2. Campus System/Cloud Migration and Disaster Recovery

Scenario Characteristics: The competent department or the school coordinates the business system to move to the cloud; there are platform-type security risks in cloud data.

Client Requirements: The system realizes online hot migration without data loss; control the security of cloud data and back up the latest data locally.

In the seamless migration and data protection process from the local to the cloud, first, based on i2Move, the campus system is realized to be online hot migrated to the education cloud. Secondly, through i2CDP, the cloud data is backed up to the local machine room in real time. This strategy not only effectively prevents the risk of data loss caused by logical errors, cloud platform failures and virus attacks, but also ensures the bidirectional synchronization and protection of data between the cloud and the local.

3. Disaster Recovery for Database Data of Finance and Campus Card

Scenario Characteristics: High data security and sensitivity; large amount of data, high frequency of query and access.

Client Requirements: Data cannot be lost and can prevent ransomware virus attacks; has little impact on production performance and the data at both ends is consistent.

In the complex local cross-operating system environment, through the real-time replication and synchronization function of i2Active database semantic-level data, the real-time synchronization of the production-end Oracle RAC database to the target Oracle server is realized. This process not only ensures the real-time and consistency of the data, but also greatly improves the flexibility and maintainability of the system. At the same time, in order to further enhance the security of the data, a cascading method is adopted to synchronize the Oracle database data to the backup server in the off-site backup center in real time. The dual protection strategy can effectively prevent the risk of data loss and ensure the integrity and availability of the data.

4. Real-time Data Synchronization and Anti-virus Ransomware for Multi-tenants in Multiple Campuses

Scenario Characteristics: Multiple campuses and multiple machine rooms, frequent data access; scattered network data security risk points.

Client Requirements: Real-time synchronization of data in each campus, anti-virus ransomware; build an off-site disaster recovery center to prevent natural disasters such as fires and earthquakes; ensure the availability, integrity, continuity and recovery reliability of data.

Establish a production center in the main campus and a disaster recovery center in the core sub-campus (or cloud). Through the adoption of i2Cloud multi-tenant cloud disaster recovery management platform, convenient account management is enabled for key systems such as educational administration, student affairs, library, scientific research and campus card. With the help of i2COOPY, the data of the two places is synchronized in real time and ensures the high consistency and continuous availability of the data at both ends. Through i2CDP, the core data is continuously backed up. When the production center faces sudden dangerous events such as logical errors, virus attacks and fires, it can quickly recover through the backup data to ensure the continuity of the business and the integrity of the data.

5. School Multi-terminal File/Shared Cloud Disk Management

Scenario Characteristics: Massive types of data, chaotic management and low efficiency; frequent file copying, repeated transmission and scattered risk points.

Client Requirements: Secure access to files in different places and multiple terminals; collaborative intercommunication, backup and unified management of campus data; multi-level permission management of network disks and recovery of historical data; real-time, convenience and intelligent management of file updates and sharing.

Through i2Share, accounts are opened for teachers, students and school staff in need, enabling them to easily access files on the shared network disk at any time and any place through Linux, Windows, Mac desktop platforms and Android and iOS mobile platforms.

i2Share not only provides multi-terminal synchronization function, ensuring that users can seamlessly switch between different devices and obtain the required files at any time, but also has the full historical version recovery ability, effectively preventing data loss caused by misoperation or version changes. i2Share also performs well in terms of security, with file secure access mechanism, encrypted storage and other capabilities, providing users with more secure and flexible data storage and sharing options.

II. Core Advantages of the Solution

Full-domain multi-cloud platform application

It can be applied in the entire network domain such as campus network, local area network and wide area network, as well as multi-cloud platforms such as education cloud, operators and public cloud, meeting the disaster recovery needs of application systems in physical machines, virtualization and cloud environments.

Multi-level and multi-system backup and disaster recovery

Adopting multi-level data replication technologies based on the host layer, volume layer block level and database, it provides real-time data backup, CDP and application disaster recovery for systems such as scientific research, campus card, educational administration, archives, online courses and finance in the digital campus, and can take over in seconds.

Multi-strategy data management and cross-campus disaster recovery

Campus data can be backed up in real-time or at regular intervals, and database data can be synchronized serially or in parallel to achieve multi-strategy data management and disaster recovery across campuses and from the local to the education cloud, solving problems such as logical errors in storage dual-active. 

Better compatibility and easy operation

It supports various operating systems, databases and virtualization platforms, has good compatibility with the user’s existing technologies and applications, does not need to change the system architecture, has graphical management, flexible deployment methods and easy operation.

Narrow bandwidth, low latency and no distance limit

Based on the real-time data synchronization at the byte level and serialized transmission technology, only the changed bytes are transmitted in real time, there is no backup time window, and the bandwidth size can be set as needed, which is suitable for data transmission scenarios at various distances and meets the requirements of data consistency.

Driven by the digital wave, with the continuous deepening of educational informatization and the significant increase in the value of educational data, data security and business continuity protection have become increasingly critical. In response to this demand and in accordance with relevant policies and regulations, Information2 has launched a series of educational disaster recovery scenario-based solutions, aiming to help institutions such as colleges and universities build a stable, secure and compliant business and data security protection system, providing a solid support for the digital transformation of the education industry in China.

On August 23, Information2, the only listed enterprise in the data replication industry, released its semi-annual performance report. The financial report shows that in the first half of 2024, the company achieved revenue of 83.5725 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.84%; R & D investment was 51.4002 million yuan, accounting for 61.50% of operating income, a year-on-year increase of 26.51%. Information2 has increased its investment in artificial intelligence and is actively embracing globalization. Major technological revolutions and important nodes in enterprise development intersect, jointly promoting this important business field of data replication to rejuvenate. In order to deeply explore how data replication reshapes the industry landscape in the new wave of technology, Data Ape specially interviewed Cui Lida, technical director of the strategy department of Information2, to discuss the symbiotic relationship between data replication and large models and their impact on large models and the data replication industry.

Gears of destiny begin to turn: Data replication collides head-on with large models.

If there is currently the biggest technological revolution, it must be large models. Large models bring not only technological revolutions and subversions. Because their operating logic is based on the simulation of the neural network of the human brain, large models show “life” attributes on some levels. This gives people a new understanding of the concept of life. In traditional biology, life is usually considered a natural system composed of DNA and proteins and having a series of traits such as metabolism, reproductive development, genetic evolution, and so on. With the rapid development of artificial intelligence, physicist Schrödinger redefined life. He believed that life is a negative entropy system of energy-information coupling. This definition crosses the boundary between biology and machinery. More and more people begin to accept the fact that this world is composed of carbon-based organisms and silicon-based organisms. Musk made a statement that carbon-based life is the boot program of silicon-based life. Whether it is silicon-based life or carbon-based life, their ultimate mission is replication. The replication of the secrets of carbon-based life organisms relies on DNA. As the carrier of human genes, DNA realizes the transmission of genetic information and the synthesis of proteins through processes such as replication, transcription, and translation, ensuring that human genetic information can be stably passed on to the next generation. For silicon-based life, data is its DNA. Data has the “natural attribute” of replicability, and binary code is its genome. Through replication, processing, and dissemination, data constitutes the “genetic code” under the silicon-based life system. ChatGpt has learned about 500 billion words. This data condenses the shining moments of humanity for thousands of years. When data is cleverly combined with artificial intelligence, silicon-based life has the power to evolve and upgrade to a higher dimension. Under the flashing lights of the digital revolution, data replication has never been the most dazzling role on the stage. For a long time, it has only been used for disaster recovery or data flow, playing an indispensable behind-the-scenes role. And with the accelerated arrival of the era of large models, the gears of destiny of data replication begin to turn, and its value is like a rolling snowball, wrapped in new snow clothes. As a result, a new plot about the symbiosis and progress of data replication and large models slowly unfolds.

Data replication and large models move towards symbiosis.

In biology, symbiosis is a natural phenomenon in which two organisms depend on each other and interact according to a certain pattern, forming a common survival and coevolution. It is an important mechanism for shaping ecological diversity. The relationship between data and large models is such a symbiotic relationship. Data replication is an important bridge to maintain this symbiotic relationship. Such a relationship is jointly determined by the technical logic and underlying architecture of data replication and large models. Cui Lida, technical director of the strategy department of Information2, said: “The technical core of large models is a huge deep learning neural network. Its operation relies on the continuous training of large-scale data and forms a stable interaction with data. Only by continuously delivering accurate, reliable, and safe data to large models can large models play a role. Therefore, data replication is one of the important cornerstones for the development of large models. At the same time, large models are systems built on a distributed architecture. Data replication is also a product of distributed systems. It is the process of copying data in a distributed database environment composed of two or more database systems. It can be said that data replication and large models grow up in the same technical soil. The two naturally have strong adaptability, which provides a physical prerequisite for their symbiosis.” So what exactly can data replication bring to large models?

1. Improve data training and sharing efficiency.

Large models usually need to process massive amounts of data. If this data is centrally stored, it may lead to single-point failures and access bottlenecks. Data replication can store data on multiple nodes, allowing large models to access data and train nearby, greatly enhancing data liquidity and improving training efficiency. At the same time, data replication enables data to be shared among multiple nodes. This enables large models to perform data processing and analysis on multiple nodes simultaneously, which not only helps strengthen data interaction and collaboration but also improves the collaborative work efficiency of the entire system.

2. Fusion of multimodal data.

With the release of OpenAI’s video generation model Sora, multimodality has become the main application form of large models. Multimodality means that large models need to process a large amount of structured and unstructured data, such as text, images, audio, and so on. Data replication can achieve the fusion and joint processing of multimodal information. This will help large models understand the latest data more comprehensively and in a more timely manner, improving the accuracy of the model and its ability to adapt to new environments.

3. Cross-platform big data migration.

With the acceleration of the industrialization and landing of large models, cross-platform data migration is becoming more and more frequent. Cui Lida gave an example: In the scenario of autonomous driving, we can often see some autonomous driving training vehicles on some closed parks or fixed road sections. These vehicles need to collect a large amount of driving data. This collected data is stored in the on-board storage system and then imported from the on-board storage system to the background to transfer data in this way. At this time, if the data replication technology is good enough, combined with 5G or the network of the control center, data can be directly replicated across platforms, eliminating the on-board storage as a transit place. Furthermore, it is not just cross-platform replication of data. In the near future, perhaps we can directly copy and migrate the trained model into a new model, eliminating the data training process of the new model. Of course, in addition to these benefits. The “traditional skills” of data replication, disaster recovery and security redundancy are also very important for large models. Large models usually need to run continuously and have high requirements for data reliability and stability. Cui Lida said: “The data used by customers for large models is often valuable confidential data. This data is generally stored in the customer’s data center. However, we cannot put all our eggs in one basket. This key data needs to be protected in the same city or in different places. By replicating data and placing each copy of data in different locations, the security level is improved. This is a rational decision that will never change.” This is the promoting effect that data replication brings to large models. So what does large models bring to data replication? The impact of large models on data replication technology is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

1. Optimize data processing flow.

Large models can optimize the data processing flow in the data replication process. For example, in a distributed storage system, large models can intelligently schedule data replication tasks and select the optimal replication path and replication strategy according to the current system load and node status, thereby reducing the waiting time and data transmission volume in the data replication process and improving the efficiency of data replication. In the past, these tasks needed to be completed by experienced engineers. Large models will greatly improve the automated processing ability and liberate manpower.

2. Optimize data replication network system.

Based on uncertain network conditions, in terms of bandwidth control, large models can achieve more intelligent and automated adjustments, thereby improving data transmission efficiency.

3. Intelligent scheduling and load balancing.

Large models have the ability of intelligent scheduling and load balancing. They can intelligently allocate data replication tasks to different nodes or processing units according to the real-time state of the system and resource usage to avoid performance degradation caused by overloading of certain nodes or processing units. Improve the efficiency of data replication.

4. End-to-end optimization.

Large models can also optimize the data replication process from an end-to-end perspective. This includes all links in the entire process from the data source to the target storage, such as data extraction, transformation, loading (ETL), and so on. By optimizing these links, large models can ensure the efficiency and accuracy of the data replication process and thereby improve the overall data replication efficiency.

Breaking through four challenges.

Although the symbiosis and integration of data replication and large models is an inevitable development. However, in actual application scenarios, there are many obstacles on the way. Cui Lida said that the symbiotic development of data replication and large models has encountered many challenges at the technical, application, market, and user levels.

1. Technical level:

Consistency. Since data replication will have multiple data copies on different nodes, ensuring the consistency of these copy data is a prerequisite for the reliable operation of large models. Real-time. Real-time data replication requires a lot of bandwidth and time and will increase system latency. Cui Lida gave a vivid example: “Just like stock trading, looking at historical K-lines cannot be used to guide current profits. Large models need more real-time data, which is a huge challenge for data replication.” Security. Ensuring data security and privacy during the data replication process is a huge challenge. And data security is not only a technical issue but also requires a complete legal system to support it.

2. Application level:

Facing the continuously upgraded operating systems, databases, and cloud platforms at the application end, as well as a large number of localized systems brought about by information technology innovation. We need to find a universal data replication method to solve compatibility issues. Only by achieving unlimited compatibility can we gain the trust of customers in market competition.

3. Market level:

The current data replication market is extremely competitive. This is a competition environment dominated by the buyer’s market. Customer demands are sometimes relatively strict, which poses huge pressure on technology providers. Moreover, in recent years, product homogenization competition and price wars have become increasingly fierce, bringing considerable pressure to enterprise operations. Some small and medium-sized manufacturers will choose to sacrifice technical configurations and lower prices to obtain industry entry tickets. This leads to market price failures and further leads to the loss of speed in technological innovation. In an increasingly homogenized competitive environment, some enterprises often over-promise to customers in order to win their favor. But when customers actually purchase products, they find that it is far from their expectations. Over time, it will have an extremely unfavorable impact on the overall development of the industry, and in the end, it is still the customers who are most hurt.

4. User level:

Diversification of user needs. For data replication, people at different levels and positions have different demands and understandings. Leaders mainly focus on management and operation links; the middle-level focuses on whether the product can bring value; and for operation and maintenance personnel, whether the product is simple to use and easy to get started is the most important thing. Cui Lida said: “These needs will inevitably be transmitted to product design. Functions such as timed backup, real-time backup, and disaster recovery need to be considered. Currently, more than 70% of our products are standardized products, and a very small number are customized products. At the same time, for special customers, we will also provide consulting services and provide a customized implementation plan to help them build the entire system from scratch. At this time, what we provide is not only a plan but also an answer.” Facing these challenges, Cui Lida put forward some countermeasures from the perspective of Information2’s own practice.

1）Optimize the data replication algorithm. By optimizing the algorithm to ensure data consistency and thereby improve the accuracy of the model.

2）Privacy protection.. Information2 applies encryption technology, access control and other technologies to data replication to ensure data security throughout the entire link.

3）Intelligent management. Information2 uses AI technology to uniformly monitor and manage the data replication flow through the interface form, greatly improving the efficiency of the entire process management.

Facing the future, stronger large models and a more secure digital era.

The integrated development of data replication and large models is full of infinite imagination. Information2 has traversed the three stages of data replication, from data replication to real-time replication of cross-cluster big data platforms, and then to system replication, vividly demonstrating the history of the coevolution of data replication and artificial intelligence. Now, the pointer of history points to the era of large models. At WAIC 2024 this year, Information2 released the new generation of AI+ document sharing and management platform i2Share, demonstrating its leading strength in AI+ data management with its professional data replication and protection technology.

Through advanced data replication protection technology and product solutions, Information2 realizes data connection and disaster recovery protection from the AI infrastructure layer to the application layer of the product, ensuring the security, integrity, and availability of data in the flow. Whether it is the flexible migration of the cloud computing environment, the deep integration of the big data platform, or the data support in the process of AI model training and inference, Information2 can provide efficient data management solutions to help users cross data silos and accelerate the flow, sharing, and exchange of data. The upgrade of data replication capabilities will inevitably bring stronger large models, more economical computing costs, and a more secure data environment. Information2 has been precipitated in the field of data replication for more than ten years and has become the first domestic listed enterprise in the industry. Cui Lida said, “Large models will accelerate the development of data replication. The data replication market will form a stable competitive pattern in a few years. After gaining a firm foothold in the domestic market, we are looking at overseas markets. With Hong Kong as the bridgehead, we have currently established a wholly-owned subsidiary. For the first stop of going overseas, we have chosen Southeast Asia and the Middle East. This is the forefront of the ‘Belt and Road’ strategy and an important projection place of national power.”

“The overseas market and the domestic market are vastly different. But because of previous R&D accumulation, Information2’s products have good compatibility and adaptability and can quickly adapt to domestic and foreign basic software and hardware products. At present, projects have been implemented in Indonesia, India, the Middle East, North Africa, and other regions.” Cui Lida is very confident in the development prospects of his own products in overseas markets.

Article by: Data Ape

Editor: Chi Jun

In-depth layout is not accomplished overnight.

Back in 2014, Information2 had the foresight to collaborate with Huawei and land the first overseas disaster recovery project. In 2016, it reached a strategic cooperation with Drulogic Technologies to jointly explore Indian and Middle East markets. In 2018, Information2 was awarded “The Most Investment and Development Potential Software Enterprise” title in the Belt and Road Software Campaign, demonstrating our growing competitiveness and influence on the international stage……

Meanwhile, Information2 actively integrates into the global cybersecurity ecosystem. By participating in various international industry conferences and events, Information2 conducts in-depth exchanges with industry leaders, experts and scholars, as well as government and enterprise institutions, and jointly explores the future trends of data security and flow.

In Hong Kong, Information2 showed up at the Shanghai Huangpu – Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Industry Cooperation Promotion Conference. The deputy general manager Jiang Jun shared the enterprise’s growth experience at the conference and expressed high hopes for the cooperation prospects of the two cities, expecting to further expand the markets in the Greater Bay Area and overseas through this international window of Hong Kong.

In Southeast Asia, Information2 attended the Huawei 2024 Digital Intelligence Asia Pacific Summit held in Bangkok, Thailand. Li Wenjing, from the strategy department of Information2, elaborated on the company’s innovative solutions for data replication, migration and interconnection, and shared successful cooperation cases with Huawei Cloud in multiple fields, showcasing Information2‘s deep accumulation and wide influence in the regional market.

In North Africa, as a founding member of the Chinese ISV Ecosystem Alliance in Huawei Cloud North Africa, Information2 was invited to participate in the North Africa Huawei Cloud Chinese ISV Roundtable Forum and won the award. This is not only an affirmation of Information2‘s technical strength and service capabilities in the African market, but also a strong support for its joint exploration of the African market with Huawei.

Multi-field Practices &Demonstrating Strength

Get involved and work diligently.

From energy to finance and then to telecom operators, the successful landing of a series of overseas projects fully demonstrates Information2‘s profound accumulation and outstanding capabilities in product technology innovation, solution customization and international services. It sets a new benchmark for the industry and lays a solid foundation for our continuous expansion in the global market.

Financial Services – In the real-time disaster recovery solution for Saggraha (an Indian financial service provider), Information2‘s real-time data replication software i2COOPY is deployed on its local production server. Core data replication operations are carried out at the host layer, and the captured data changes are transmitted in real-time to the disaster recovery center of Huawei Cloud International Station for secure storage, strictly ensuring data consistency between the production end and the disaster recovery end, achieving real-time disaster recovery at the data level and escorting its digital transformation.

Telecom Operators – In the off-site high-availability disaster recovery solution for ZAIN (a Saudi telecom operator), Information2 installs the control machine on the Linux/Windows hosts in the Dammam disaster recovery center and uses i2COOPY for real-time data backup. It ensures that there is always a current and latest data available for immediate recovery at all times without a backup time window. The application high-availability management and monitoring platform is monitored by the Information2 control machine and uses i2Availability for high-availability system disaster recovery to ensure that in the event of any problems with the source production host, the corresponding business takeover can be manually grouped and switched to effectively avoid business interruption caused by source-end problems.

Energy – In the CloudCDM cloud disaster recovery solution for PAMA (an Indonesian mining giant), this solution uses a hybrid IT architecture to achieve data storage and backup on the EVS hard drive in the cloud, solving the problem of data backup and disaster recovery from the customer’s local to the cloud center. It effectively ensures the business continuity and data security of PAMA, significantly improves the overall security of its digital system, and greatly simplifies the management and operation and maintenance costs.

Automotive Services – In the high-availability disaster recovery solution for GAC (Grupo Automotriz Cordillera, a Chilean automotive manufacturer), Information2‘s high-availability disaster recovery management software i2Availability monitors the system operation status of the production server in real-time. When detecting various abnormalities (such as abnormal stop of the business system, network abnormality, hardware failure, etc.) that make the source business unreachable, the application can be switched to the disaster recovery center of Huawei Cloud International Station with one click, ensuring the business continuity of GAC and facilitating its business model upgrade and enhancement of core competitiveness.

In addition, Information2 has also served many large overseas users such as LPPSA Phase in Malaysia, Royal Exchange in Nigeria, AIS in Thailand, Disha Bank in India, and Meeza in Qatar.

One platform: i2UP Unified Data Management Platform. Mo Tao, Information2 senior technical engineer, stated that all products of I2 are uniformly managed by this one platform, which has global data management functions and is applicable to business scenarios such as big data platforms and multi-cloud platforms. The platform integrates all software products of I2, enabling multi-level data replication and multiple policy data management, reducing the difficulty of customer operation and maintenance management, and helping users achieve efficient and intelligent data management.

Two benefits: Ensuring data security and compliance; revitalizing isolated data assets. Based on data replication, the related products developed by I2 assist various industries in data security and business continuity, while helping various users break data silos, achieve data interconnection, maximize data value, and safeguard the development of the digital economy. 

Three technologies: Database semantic-level replication, OS-level data replication, and data block-level replication. With the characteristics of high real-time performance, strong stability, reliability, and security, the three core technologies of I2 can adapt to complex production environments such as high-intensity and high-concurrency, massive data, and cross-different architectures, meeting the needs of autonomy, security, and controllability in the key links of domestic informatization, and leading in the field of enterprise business continuity and data replication management.

Four scenarios: Disaster recovery, backup, cloud disaster recovery, and big data. Based on the three core underlying replication technologies, I2 has developed and launched related products covering four major scenarios such as disaster recovery + backup + cloud disaster recovery + big data. Specific products include: i2COOPY Real-time Data Replication, i2CDP Continuous Data Protection and Recovery, i2CDM Data Copy Management, i2Active Homogeneous Database Dual-Active Replication, i2Stream Data Flow Replication Management, etc.

Three Migration Scenario Solutions

Mo Tao stated that the current migration solutions of I2 include three major categories: entire machine migration, unstructured data migration, and database migration. Migration tools include: operating system online hot migration system, cloud-native database migration system, object storage migration system, data migration system, ferry machine migration system, etc., which can basically cover the migration needs of mainstream users in the wave of domestic substitution.

01 Entire Machine Migration

Existing problems: Under the digital wave, data centers are strengthening the usages of virtualization, such as virtual machines, hyper-convergence, public cloud, private cloud, and hybrid cloud. However, during the cloud migration process of enterprise institutions, they face many problems such as a large amount of service migration work, significant impact of downtime, and difficulty in finding drivers.

Real-time data synchronization and migration

As a classic product of I2, i2COOPY, based on byte-level replication technology, can be combined with i2Move to form an entire machine migration solution or meet the data flow needs of users. For example, when video and image unstructured data needs to be migrated from platform A to platform B, it can be achieved through i2COOPY.

i2COOPY mainly provides users with real-time byte-level data replication services. It relies on data serialization transmission technology to strictly ensure the consistency and integrity of data at the production end and the target end. It can capture new data at the byte level, has high real-time performance, small transmission data volume, and low resource occupation of the production server.

Overall migration

i2Move provides users with the entire machine hot migration service from the production server to the local or cloud target server. Different from other migration methods that package the system, i2Move can complete the entire machine migration during the process of real-time data synchronization.

i2Move can realize real-time replication of the system and data without stopping the business. After the replication is completed, the system can be quickly switched, and the new host can take over the business. The migration process is not limited by the form of the server and ensures real-time consistency between the production server and the target server.

02 Unstructured Data Migration and Synchronization

Existing problems: Problems of synchronizing and backing up large numbers of small files, realizing the transformation from NAS block storage to ECS object storage, online data synchronization and migration, data consistency requirements, real-time synchronization under narrow bandwidth…

Synchronization and migration of object storage

The migration of unstructured data is mainly applied in the migration of different object storages and different storage platforms.

i2DTO can copy or migrate data on local storage to object storage, or restore data on object storage to local storage. It helps users centrally back up massive unstructured data to object storage, thereby improving the retrieval and access performance of unstructured data. It not only reduces operating costs but also improves data security.

03 Database Migration, Synchronization, Disaster Recovery, Aggregation, Distribution

Existing problems: Dual-active databases, data collection/distribution, heterogeneous data interaction, data collection of big data platforms…

Real-time synchronization, disaster recovery, and migration of homogeneous databases

i2Active is a real-time data replication and synchronization software at the database language level. It realizes full and incremental synchronization of databases in high-concurrency transaction scenarios of the database, and ensures the final consistency of transactions at the source and target ends of the database through synchronization verification. At the same time, it provides advanced functions such as standby database takeover and incremental rollback, helping users complete data integration tasks such as disaster recovery backup of databases, heterogeneous data migration, data distribution, and construction of data warehouses in complex application environments.

Real-time synchronization and migration of heterogeneous databases

Based on data sharing technology, i2Stream can achieve bidirectional synchronization of data at the database level, schema level, and table level between databases, realize the extraction, replication, and management of structured data, and is compatible with distributed message queues such as Kafka, providing users with flexible high-availability solutions.

Mo Tao stated that currently, for Amazon Cloud, Alibaba Cloud, JD Cloud, Tencent Cloud, Baidu Cloud, Tianyi Cloud, Unicom Cloud, Inspur Cloud, etc., I2 can provide migration and cloud services. Finally, starting from the practical implementation, he shared the successful cases of I2 in various industries. Typical cases include:

Hot migration of a municipal government cloud in Guangxi, with a migration service of 1,000 virtual machines, involving applications such as medical care, real estate, and government portal websites, including multiple provincial-level units;

Overall business migration of Changsha Bank. The IT environment consists of multiple basic platform architectures such as Alibaba Cloud, EasyStack, VMware virtualization, and physical machines. The number of business system hosts is approximately 1,000+. The migration scenarios involve underlying data, applications, databases, virtual machines across heterogeneous platforms, and other levels;

Sinotrans – Cross-platform business system migration, Chengdu Government Cloud – Migration of thousands of systems on heterogeneous platforms, China Sky Eye FAST Observatory – Ultra-high-speed data migration, etc.

On the conference, Information2 also showed the entire series of product services, solutions, and successful cases implemented in Guangxi. To accelerate the digital transformation, we will unswervingly focus on customers and continuously promote the upgrade and iteration of product technologies, seeking innovation and change.

A large city commercial bank’s big data analysis service platform has been online for years, handling key data. With the platform’s rising importance and frequent downtime, disaster recovery compliance is stricter. The bank’s data has grown, causing issues like small file increase and high cold data proportion. If not fixed, it’ll affect digital scenarios. The bank needs disaster recovery for data synchronization and separation to ensure analysis efficiency, data security, and business stability. 

With Information2 i2HDFS, data is synchronized in real-time for disaster recovery, and the backup provides read-only access. This separates reading and writing, boosts analysis, and reduces storage costs.

While Shanghai, with its profound cultural heritage and open business environment, has nurtured many scientific and creative enterprises, Hong Kong offers a unique platform for mainland technology companies to expand internationally, thanks to its strategic geographical advantages and global outlook as an international financial center.

Sailing From Here: Information2 Embarks on Overseas Expansion with the Hong Kong/Shanghai Cooperation Platform

In 2023, at the significant milestone of the 20th anniversary of the Hong Kong/Shanghai Cooperation Institution, the United Front Work Department of the Huangpu District People’s Government of Shanghai led the Huangpu District Science and Innovation Group to hold the Shanghai Huangpu – Hong Kong Science and Innovation Industry Cooperation Promotion Conference in Hong Kong, marking a new chapter in science and innovation cooperation. On June 28, 2024, the 2024 Shanghai Huangpu – Hong Kong Cultural and Tourism Industry Promotion Conference and Key Project Cooperation Ceremony was successfully held in Hong Kong. Ms. Lu Zheng, Standing Committee Member of the Huangpu District Party Committee, Minister of the United Front Work Department, and President of the Huangpu Overseas Association, attended the event and delivered a speech.

Relevant leaders from the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government, Invest Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, the Huangpu Hong Kong Association, the Huangpu Cultural Tourism Group, Hong Kong Science Park, and representatives from companies such as Huawei, Lenovo, China Telecom, Bank of China International, Oriental International, and Industrial Bank, as well as other partners and customer leaders, attended the conference.

The opening of the Hong Kong Subsidiary not only laid the foundation for business development in Hong Kong but also highlighted the importance of close cooperation between Shanghai and Hong Kong. As one of the key milestones in Shanghai/Hong Kong science and technology cooperation, the Hong Kong Subsidiary will leverage the parent company’s extensive experience in data replication technology to support innovation and development in Hong Kong’s technology sector, particularly in the development of new products, new business models, and new market opportunities.

Mr. Lu Zheng, Member of the Standing Committee of the Huangpu District Committee of Shanghai, Minister of the United Front Work Department, and President of the Huangpu Overseas Association; Mr. Hu Zhongde, Senior Vice President of Invest Hong Kong; Mr. Hu Shenglong, Senior Business Development Manager of Hong Kong Science Park; Mr. Hu Junqing, Chairman and General Manager of Information2; and Mr. Li Jiahua, Vice President of Zhanhua Hong Kong, participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of the Hong Kong Subsidiary. More than 100 guests were present to witness this festive moment.

Subsequently, Hu Junqing, CEO and General Manager of Information2, gave a speech. He expressed his gratitude to the United Front Work Department of Shanghai Huangpu District, Invest Hong Kong, Huangpu Overseas Association, Hong Kong Science Park, Huangpu Cultural Travel Group, and other supporting departments and enterprises. He said, “Shanghai’s high-quality business environment and policy support have provided fertile ground for Information2 to grow from ‘incubation’ to ‘listing.’ Now, we set sail again, extending our business reach to Hong Kong and international markets. Our diligent operations and production will ensure we live up to everyone’s support and help. Today, Hong Kong is full of development opportunities. We firmly believe that with the strong support of our friends in Shanghai and Hong Kong, Information2 will continue to innovate and develop, providing high-quality and efficient services to customers worldwide.”

The establishment of the Hong Kong Subsidiary marks a significant step in Information2’s international expansion. The Hong Kong Subsidiary will serve as a crucial hub for Information2 in the Asia-Pacific region, helping the company further expand its international market and strengthen connections with global customers and partners. Additionally, the Hong Kong Subsidiary will facilitate cooperation between Information2 and local enterprises in Hong Kong, promoting collaboration in product development, market expansion, and ecosystem building.

In overseas markets, Information2 has earned wide recognition from customers. Our business spans Asia Pacific, the Middle East, South America, Africa, Europe, and other regions. Information2’s technical product solutions are competitive with other international products in terms of technology leadership, product variety, and operational convenience, meeting the diverse and complex needs of various customers.

Innovation and Cooperation: Shaping a New Data Era

Looking forward, innovation and cooperation will be key to thriving in this new era of data filled with opportunities and challenges. Information2 is committed to working hand-in-hand with industry partners and customers on the fertile soil of Hong Kong, supported by the Shanghai/Hong Kong cooperation platform, to create brilliance and secure a better digital future for the world. Information2, prepared for anything! 

The report also shows that in 2023, China’s data replication and protection (DR&P) market will increase by 3.1% compared to 2022.

In 2023, Information2  realized double growth in revenue and profit, with annual revenue of RMB 24,310.97 million, a year-on-year increase of 23.49%, and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of RMB 44,644.46 million, a year-on-year increase of 20.29%.

The outstanding performance of Information2 has not only won the recognition of the market, but also gained a number of honors and qualifications. The company has been recognized as a national specialized, special and new “small giant” enterprise, and its contribution to the localization of the big data industry has been widely recognized by the industry. In addition, Infosoft has actively expanded into the international market, establishing cooperative relationships with more than 400 domestic enterprises and successfully landing projects in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, demonstrating the competitiveness of Chinese enterprises in the global market.

Looking ahead, Information2 will continue to adhere to the innovation-driven and market-oriented approach, continuously strengthen its R&D strength, enhance product competitiveness, and expand its marketing network and service system, with a view to occupying a more favorable position in the global market and continuing the new chapter of Chinese enterprises going overseas.

Mr. Junqing Hu, Chairman and CEO of Information2, firstly expressed his heartfelt thanks to all levels of government, users, partners, investors, service organizations, industry players, and the Information2 team for their companionship along the way.

Mr. Junqing Hu said, “The listing of Information2 Software means that the company has successfully landed in the capital market, which is a new starting point for the company. We will firmly grasp this valuable opportunity, continue to increase investment in research and development, expand the marketing network, provide customers with better quality products and services, continue to achieve rapid growth in performance, and maximize the win-win situation for customers, employees, society and shareholders. We hope that you will continue to care about and support Information2, and that we will develop healthily and steadily, and build Information2 into a high-quality listed company with strong sustainable growth.”

Founded in 2011, Information2 is a basic software company focusing on data replication. Its main business revolves around data elements, a rich and cutting-edge application scenario, and provides users with product solutions such as data security, hybrid cloud disaster recovery versus backup, database synchronization, data migration, data copy management, and big data collection and distribution.

Reviewing the company’s development history, Information2 started from Shanghai IC Design Incubation Base, following the Huangpu District Government’s efforts to build a “3+3+X” industrial system, the company focuses on the research and development of kernel-level data replication core technology and innovation, and took the first step to break the long-standing monopoly of foreign companies on the relevant replication technology.

Since its establishment, Information2 has been climbing up the ladder and making great progress. With the support and efforts of users, partners, investors and employees, Information2 has not only realized the localization of the world’s advanced data replication technology at the technical level, but also matured and completed the layout at the market level. At present, the company has a wide range of user groups and brand awareness in the fields of finance, government affairs, medical care, operators and so on.

    In terms of industry market share, Information2 has been ranked as the No. 1 professional vendor in China for four consecutive times in the global vendor ranking in the IDC software market segment. Information2’s excellent performance in the data replication track is due to its significant competitive advantages:

①Focus on underlying kernel-level technology, standardized product delivery

Information2’s core technologies are all self-developed and have high technical barriers. With more than 10 years of continuous R&D investment, we have gradually formed three core technology systems represented by “dynamic file byte-level replication, database semantic-level replication and volume-level block-level replication”, and four major product lines: “disaster recovery versus backup, big data and cloud disaster recovery”, Nearly 30 standardized products can be quickly delivered to various users. The products can be operated visually through the unified data management platform, with low learning and usage costs and simple maintenance.

②Wide range of application scenarios and significant advantages of combinations

Information2’s products cover classic application scenarios such as disaster recovery versus backup, data security, hybrid cloud disaster recovery, database synchronization, data migration, etc., and also extend to more application areas such as intelligent disaster recovery management, data replica management, data flow management, big data collection and distribution, data following, data desensitization and so on. Under multi-scenario, multi-demand, heterogeneous infrastructure environment, the company’s combination of products can meet the user’s multi-level, multi-strategy, diversified needs, and has obvious advantages in the field of governmental cloud, big data and so on.

③Full eco-chain cooperation, many benchmark cases for head users

Information2 has cooperated with major enterprises in the industry chain at home and abroad on ecology and channels, including Huawei, Xinhua San, Wave, Dawning, Tencent Cloud, Ali Cloud, Jingdong Cloud, etc., and has completed compatibility adaptation with more than a hundred product models in the industry. It has a high-quality customer base represented by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Haitong Securities, Guotai Junan, Dongfang Securities, Huitian Fortune Fund, Fortune Fund, Guangfa Fund, Jiangxi Provincial Public Security Bureau, Jiangsu Big Data Bureau, Mobile Cloud, etc. The number of users is growing steadily and the repurchase rate is high.

In addition to the accumulation of its own technical products and hard power, Information2’s successful listing is also inseparable from the favorable policies frequently released by the state. In recent years, from the network security law to the “equal protection 2.0”, from the “14th Five-Year Plan” digital economy development plan to the East counts the West counts, from the domestic substitution to the “data twenty”, intensive policies have helped Yingfang Software enter a period of rapid development. Information2 has entered a period of rapid development, and the company’s “data security, big data, domestic software, east counting, west counting, digital economy” and other tracks have also exploded with huge growth potential.

With the passage of time, we have opened a new chapter. After more than ten years of innovation and development, Information2 has delivered an eye-catching “answer sheet” to the industry – successfully landing on the capital market in 2023, which will lead the data replication related industry into a new stage of development.

After the listing, Information2 will be committed to continue to increase the investment in research and development of hard-core technology, strengthen the competitiveness of a single product at the same time, and continue to form a combination of advantages of the product, and invest more resources to the overseas market, to provide better products and services for the users of all walks of life, and to return to the community, investors, and all sectors of society with excellent performance.

Thank you again for your love and support over the years, let us go to the starry sea of data replication!