Korean Air Elevates Productivity with Synology Office Suite

The Korean Air Aerospace Business Division, responsible for designing and manufacturing advanced unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), critical components for Boeing and Airbus aircraft, and space launch vehicles, employs over 1,000 professionals. Historically, the department relied heavily on emails for collaboration and file sharing, resulting in complex email threads that significantly hindered efficiency.

As the organization grew, increasing concerns about data security, scalability, and ownership prompted Korean Air to look for a better solution. 

To meet its data security and management goals, Korean Air overhauled its IT infrastructure, transitioning from a fragmented array of costly SaaS services to Synology's unified on-premises storage and productivity platform. 

Two Synology high-availability clusters formed the basis of the deployment. One cluster hosts Synology Drive, Office, and Chat, which served as the department's primary file server, collaborative editing, and instant messaging system. The second cluster is tasked with running Synology MailPlus, Calendar, Contacts, and a virtual machine hosting the organization's private video and audio conferencing solution. 

For backup and disaster recovery, a dedicated Synology system acts as the backup target, utilizing integrated tools like Hyper Backup to simplify the entire process while maintaining storage efficiency and data security.

With the Synology platform in place, traditional multi-day workflows were modernized, delivering an estimated 80% improvement in productivity across the department.

Cumbersome email threads and scattered files were replaced with a secure, centralized file repository featuring fine-grained permission controls and full data ownership. Additionally, Synology Drive ensures local data on employee devices is automatically synced to the central server, reducing IT overhead.

The overhaul also proved financially advantageous, with the total cost of ownership yielding over 40% savings compared to the previous SaaS-based approach.