Simple and Automated
OT Client Backups With ondeso SR

The team for digital workplaces of a semiconductor manufacturer was faced with the challenge of backing up the data of all OT clients during operation. On the one hand, this served to protect against cyber attacks and ransomware; on the other hand, internal security guidelines required that new OT clients be backed up and scanned for viruses before going live.

The industrial IT infrastructure was complex: some OT clients were already connected to the network, while others were operated offline. In addition, there was a heterogeneous system landscape with various Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems. Conventional backup approaches proved impractical, error-prone and time-consuming.

For these reasons, the semiconductor manufacturer decided to use our client management software ondeso SR. The basis for the automated backup process was a bootable Microsoft Windows Preinstallation Environment (PE), which was started via USB stick and performed the backup.

Working closely with the team for digital workplaces, our ondeso consultants from the Professional Services team developed a customized process. One requirement was that the backup process could be started and executed without an IT professional, for example, if the opportunity arose during an unplanned maintenance window. All of this was made possible by ondeso SR using a bootable Windows PE USB stick. The minimized Windows operating system provided the ideal environment for securely performing the backups.

The execution was extremely simple. After inserting the USB stick, the system was started via the bootable Windows PE. Then, predefined workflows ensured easy selection of backup options that performed either a local backup to the USB stick or a backup to a network share. All backups created were first placed in quarantine storage and checked for viruses before being copied to the final share. After the automated backup process was successfully tested, it was implemented in various plants of the semiconductor company worldwide. As a result, more than 1,000 OT clients have already been successfully backed up.

The implementation of ondeso SR brought numerous benefits to the semiconductor group. The software makes it possible to secure both online and offline OT clients with different operating systems in a standardized manner. The planned expansion to a further 10,000 of the group‘s clients worldwide demonstrates the power of ondeso SR.

„Our customer can now create backups of its OT clients without affecting the system,“ says Andreas Decker, OT consultant at ondeso. „The simple implementation with defined workflows enables every employee to perform the backup process without IT expertise.“ Thanks to this successful collaboration and the use of ondeso SR, the semiconductor group can now protect OT clients in production easily and efficiently.

Sounds Interesting?

Here you can download a summary of this Success Story as a PDF file.