Key Metrics
2X
By reducing data volumes to less than half, the effective storage capacity was doubled
24x
Backup performance increase
Industry
Location
- Japan, APAC
Hardware
Software
“Even as the user base continues to grow, backup processing times remain virtually unaffected. This enables us to scale the service with confidence, both today and in the future.”
Yuki Kiyomasa, Director, Infrastructure Solutions Department, Software Service, Inc.
Challenge
Resilient Healthcare Data Protection Across Geographically Distributed Date Centers in Tokyo and Osaka
Software Service, Inc. (SSI) is a specialist medical IT company providing the Shinban (New Edition) e‑Karte® electronic medical record (EMR) system — adopted by more than 1,000 hospitals — as well as the “NEWTONS2” series of comprehensive hospital ordering systems. Guided by a corporate philosophy centered on rapidly translating the needs of healthcare professionals into practical solutions, and on safeguarding mission‑critical systems that must operate continuously, SSI has earned a high level of trust from its customers. Beyond software package sales, SSI’s core strength lies in its ability to deliver end‑to‑end support, encompassing the development and maintenance of peripheral systems as well as ongoing operational services. In recent years, in response to growing interest in emerging technologies such as generative AI within the healthcare sector, SSI has been actively expanding AI‑enabled capabilities and developing new services continuing to evolve with a strong focus on real‑world clinical requirements.
Within the medical information systems provided by SSI, any loss of data can have serious consequences, not only disrupting hospital operations, but also potentially endangering patient lives. Against the backdrop of increasingly frequent natural disasters and escalating cyber threats, SSI places particular emphasis on its Remote Backup Service, which is designed to deliver an even higher level of safety and assurance. The service securely stores hospital data in SSI‑operated data centers located at geographically separate sites, ensuring robust protection in the event of an emergency. Offered as a paid option, the service has been widely recognized for its value and is currently used by more than 500 medical institutions — representing approximately half of all hospitals operating SSI’s systems — as a core component of its business continuity planning (BCP).
Yuki Kiyomasa, Director, Infrastructure Solutions Department
Most large hospitals in Japan operate their core systems in on‑premises environments, with equipment installed in on‑site server rooms. As a result — aside from a limited number of cases leveraging platform‑as‑a‑service (PaaS) — SSI’s systems are also deployed primarily on‑premises. Yuki Kiyomasa, Director, Infrastructure Solutions Dept., says,
“Many hospitals are keenly aware of the risks associated with retaining critical data solely within their own facilities. The high adoption rate — now exceeding 50% — reflects hospitals’ strong sense of responsibility to ensure the continuity of care during emergencies and to safeguard regional healthcare services.”
To achieve this level of resilience, it is essential to establish backup sites at physically separate locations. SSI operates highly resilient data centers at two geographically distinct sites — Tokyo and Osaka — storing data from medical institutions in western Japan in Tokyo, and data from eastern Japan in Osaka. This cross‑regional configuration minimizes the risk that a hospital and its backup data center could be impacted simultaneously in the event of a large‑scale disaster, while ensuring comprehensive data protection supported by dedicated operational teams. Hospitals are connected directly to these data centers via dedicated private lines, preventing the leakage of highly sensitive medical information to external networks.
Solution
The Final Safeguard for Healthcare Data: Downtime‑Free Immutable Backups
The Remote Backup Service primarily protects electronic medical record (EMR) databases registered within SSI’s systems, including clinical notes, test results, and medication orders. These medical records are updated on a second‑by‑second basis and are continuously transferred and synchronized in near real-time.
According to Kiyomasa, “Electronic medical records consist primarily of text and image data, so each individual record is relatively small,” he says. “However, they represent the accumulated history of clinical decision‑making, and over time they grow into an enormous body of data. This is precisely why it is essential to reliably synchronize this highly valuable information with our data centers over secure, dedicated connections.”
Server Group 3 Manager, Yuto Masu
Since the launch of the service, the Tokyo data center has relied on Hitachi Vantara products as the foundation of its backup infrastructure. In 2025, SSI initiated a platform expansion project in response to the continued growth of its user base. The infrastructure team’s objective extended beyond simply increasing capacity; it was to establish a next‑generation platform capable of addressing evolving security risks while simultaneously reducing operational workload.
“We evaluated proposals from multiple vendors, but Hitachi Vantara was the only one that comprehensively addressed all of our challenges,” says Yuto Masu, Manager, Infrastructure Solutions Dept. “In particular, the solution met our requirements to accommodate the increased load driven by a growing user base, enhance backup performance, and comply with the latest security requirements.”
Immutable backup capability — now a critical requirement for defending against modern cyberattacks — was the top priority in the evaluation process, as it prevents backup data from being altered or deleted even in the event of a security or credential compromise.
“When evaluating multiple products, we found that some solutions required servers to be stopped in order to create a consistent point‑in‑time backup,” Masu says. “However, hospital systems cannot be taken offline; they must operate continuously, 24/7/365. Hitachi Vantara’s solution was the only one that enabled us to perform backups while keeping the servers running, while also managing multiple backup generations in parallel. This difference has a significant impact on day‑to‑day operations. We also placed high value on the fact that these capabilities are built directly into the storage platform, without reliance on external tools such as backup software.”
“There is no need to manage backups through separate backup software; everything from backup generation management to immutable configuration is handled natively within the storage platform. Combined with an intuitive management interface, this has significantly reduced our day‑to‑day operational workload.”
Keisuke Horikawa, Infrastructure Solutions Department, Software Service, Inc.
Outcome
The Story Behind a High‑Performance Platform Modernization Powered by One Hitachi Collaboration
System development was handled by Hitachi Systems, Ltd. During the implementation phase, however, the existing platform came under extreme strain as user growth exceeded initial projections. As server I/O workloads approached their operational limits, the risk of disk failures and system errors increased significantly, pushing the environment into a critical state where service disruption was imminent.
“We were concerned that the existing system might not remain stable if we waited for the new platform to be fully completed,” Masu says. “As a result, we made a request to Hitachi Systems that was highly demanding both technically and from a scheduling perspective: to begin migrating a portion of the data to the new platform in parallel with the build process.”
The challenge was to migrate a live, actively running backup service in advance to a new platform that was still under construction. Through close collaboration, Hitachi Systems and Hitachi Vantara successfully addressed this demanding requirement by executing a carefully engineered migration strategy supported by rigorous testing and validation. As a result, the load on the legacy platform was significantly reduced and system stability was restored. At the same time, the team gained strong confidence that the new platform would operate reliably once it entered full production.
Keisuke Horikawa, Infrastructure Solutions Dept. says, “We were able to stabilize and effectively rescue the legacy platform, which had been in a critical state, while simultaneously executing a smooth and complete migration to the new platform. Accomplishing all of this within just two months was possible only because of the technical expertise and dedicated support of everyone involved in the project.”
The new platform replaced traditional HDDs with SSDs as its primary storage medium. While transitions to SSD‑based storage typically entail higher costs, Hitachi Vantara’s proprietary hardware‑based compression accelerator delivers both high performance and exceptional compression efficiency. “In actual operation, we found that the data was compressed to less than half of its original size,” Horikawa says. Performance gains were equally dramatic: backup processes that previously required up to 24 hours are now completed in under one hour.
Yoshiyuki Horikawa, Data Center Engineer, Server Group 3
Cybersecurity capabilities have also advanced significantly. “Data stored within the immutable zone cannot be overwritten or deleted, even by our own system administrators,” Masu says. “Even if a customer environment were to be compromised by ransomware, we can securely preserve clean, uncompromised data in the immutable zone and restore systems from that trusted point.”
Although no actual incidents have occurred to date, SSI has conducted two large‑scale recovery simulations. “Recovery is a multi‑step process that depends heavily on data volume, involving activities such as data replication and the physical transport of equipment, and therefore cannot be completed in just a few hours,” Masu says. “Even so, knowing with certainty that recoverable data exists provides an irreplaceable sense of assurance—for both our customers and our own organization.”
For operations teams, the simplicity of the new platform has been particularly well received. Horikawa explains:
“There is no need to manage backups through separate backup software; everything from backup generation management to immutable configuration is handled natively within the storage platform,” Horikawa says. “Combined with an intuitive management interface, this has significantly reduced our day‑to‑day operational workload.”
By reducing data volumes to less than half, the effective storage capacity was doubled. Performance improved markedly, and operational workload was significantly reduced. These benefits more than offset the additional costs associated with the transition to SSD‑based storage. As a result, SSI achieved substantially higher performance while maintaining overall cost efficiency.
Building a Sustainable Data Infrastructure for the Future of Healthcare
SSI’s business continues to grow at a rapid pace, with the number of supported hospitals expected to increase by approximately 60 to 70 hospitals annually. To accommodate this sustained growth, SSI plans to expand its infrastructure on an approximately two‑year cycle and has already secured sufficient capacity and physical space within its Tokyo data center.
“With the platform we have implemented, backup processing times remain stable even as the number of users continues to grow,” Kiyomasa says. “Looking ahead to future expansions, we can proceed with a new level of confidence and assurance.”
