Smooth transition, stronger security: JX Advanced Metals chooses Veeam for Hyper-V leap

Founded as the Hitachi Mine in 1905, JX Metals has evolved into a global leader in non-ferrous metals and advanced materials. The company’s high-performance copper and thin-film technologies fuel next-generation breakthroughs, including AI and other data-driven innovations.

For years, JX Metals relied on VMware vSphere to operate their virtual environments across multiple plants and data centers, including locations in Isohara, Hitachi, Kurami, and Saganoseki. This infrastructure has been integral for maintaining efficiency and reliability across the organization.

In 2024, the company faced two significant challenges. The first challenge was that the maintenance period for its physical servers, including the hyperconverged infrastructure that supports its virtual environment, was scheduled to expire in August. Therefore, the company required a hardware refresh to ensure continued stability and performance.

The second challenge came with Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware, which introduced major changes to the licensing model. The shift from perpetual licenses to subscription-based billing, along with a change from CPU socket-based pricing to CPU core-based pricing, created concerns about rising costs and operational complexity within JX Metals. These developments prompted JX Metals to reassess its IT strategy and seek a solution that would deliver cost efficiency, operational simplicity, and long-term resilience.

“Changes to VMware’s licensing system raised new risks, such as rising operational costs and uncertainty about future procurement and maintenance,” said Takatsugu Sano of the IT Department Technology Group at JX Advanced Metals. “As a result, we decided to switch virtualization platforms in addition to updating our server hardware.”

Rather than simply replacing existing hardware and software, the company took a forward-looking approach by setting policies to reduce operating costs, improve performance, and strengthen security.

“We needed to smoothly migrate each VM from VMware vSphere to Microsoft Hyper-V while minimizing system downtime,” said Sano.

JX Advanced Metals selected Veeam Data Platform as a core part of its IT strategy to ensure reliable migration, simplified deployment, and robust backup capabilities for its new virtualization environment.

“We decided to adopt Veeam Data Platform because it offers seamless data portability across different hypervisors and has high compatibility Microsoft Hyper-V,” said Sano.

Previously, JX Metals relied on VMware vSphere Replication for their data backups, which limited flexibility and created challenges as the company transitioned to Microsoft Hyper-V. Now, with Veeam, JX Metals has standardized their backup and recovery by simplifying and streamlining operations as a whole. This approach ensures future adaptability, whether migrating between virtualization platforms or integrating cloud services.

Sano also praised Veeam Data Platform’s user-friendly interface. “Although the display is in English, the screen layout is intuitive and straightforward,” said Sano. “Workflows for restores, job monitoring, and report confirmation are clearly organized, making it easy for our team to become proficient with Veeam Data Platform.”

Looking ahead, JX Advanced Metals plans to strengthen ransomware protection by implementing Veeam’s hardened Linux repository and adopting the 3-2-1-1-0 backup rule with off-site storage. Additional security features such as secure restore and malware detection are also under consideration, reinforcing the company’s commitment to data resilience.

• Achieves seamless migration with minimal business impact
  JX Metals transitions from VMware vSphere to Microsoft Hyper-V by using Veeam Data Platform to ensure operations continue with zero downtime.
• Standardized backup and recovery for future adaptability
  The company consolidated all backups on Veeam Data Platform to create a unified solution that supports future platform changes and cloud integration without lock-in.
• Enhanced security posture with advanced protection
  JX Metals implemented Veeam’s hardened Linux repository and plans to adopt features such as secure restore and malware detection to strengthen defenses against ransomware and safeguarding critical workloads.