Managing Vietnam
Vietnam’’s precious environmental resources
from the cloud
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in Vietnam transformed its IT infrastructure into
a secure and reliable private cloud for greater flexibility, cost-effectiveness, and scalability.
The challenge
Vietnam’s Ministry of Natural
Resources and Environment’s
(MONRE) existing IT infrastructure
struggled to meet rapidly changing
demands for computing, application
and storage resources.
The solution
The IBM Global Technology Services
team helped MONRE design and
deploy a private cloud consisting of
an IBM WebSphere CloudBurst
Appliance, IBM BladeCenter H
Chassis housing four IBM
BladeCenter HS22V blade servers
running VMWare, and an IBM
System Storage DS3400 disk system.
The benefits
A cost-efficient, highly scalable
cloud-based computing
environment that reduces IT
overheads, delivers computing
power and application services on
demand, and simplifies
management through self-service
capabilities.
Vietnam’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment
(MONRE) is responsible for air, land and water resource
management in one of South East Asia’s most vibrant emerging
economies. Since its elevation in 2002 to become the lead
institution for environmental management in the country,
MONRE takes the lead on environmental planning, impact
assessments, compliance monitoring and enforcement. MONRE
consists of 24 institutional units across 8 departments, and works
with many stakeholders - not just within the ministry, but also
with external agencies.
Keeping up with user and application demands
Yet, even as MONRE worked to fulfill its mandate, it faced
increasing challenges in its IT infrastructure. To meet its
stakeholders’ growing requirements for more computing power
and storage – especially for applications that supported
environmental management initiatives, as well as the growth in
data resulting from its multitude of studies and data collection
efforts – MONRE had implemented isolated servers and storage
devices in an attempt to keep up with demand.
As a result, MONRE’s IT infrastructure rapidly evolved into an
unwieldy and fragmented environment: vital ministry data was
scattered across different repositories, while server and storage
resources could not be allocated effectively to rapidly changing
needs. Yet, MONRE realized that deploying more servers and
storage was not the answer, since it would mean higher costs,
greater complexity, and severe underutilization during quieter
periods.
MONRE decided that it needed an infrastructure that could scale quickly and cost-effectively to the
changing demands of its users. It also wanted to ensure that all ministry data could be unified into a
single repository, accessible to everyone who needed it.
Charting an optimal path to a cloud-based computing environment
In order to achieve the level of flexibility they had envisioned, and as part of its five year strategic
goal, MONRE launched an infrastructure platform to integrate and manage the country’s data on
land, water, mineral, environment, meteorological, hygrograph and oceanography resources. This IT
initiative would transform its existing infrastructure into a cloud-based computing environment.
The ministry joined forces with the consultants from the IBM Global Technology Services –
Integrated Technology Services team to map out an optimal path to the cloud.
A key component of the transformation was the IBM WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance. The first of
its kind, the WebSphere CloudBurst Appliance is a self-contained “cloud-in-a-box” solution which
delivers the hardware, software and services needed to help MONRE launch a secure, reliable
private cloud environment.
To provide the computing power needed to run the diverse range of application environments on
the cloud, the IBM Integrated Technology Services team deployed an IBM BladeCenter H Chassis
housing four IBM BladeCenter HS22V blade servers, running a VMware virtualization platform.
Finally, the IBM team connected an IBM System Storage DS3400 disk system to the infrastructure,
creating a unified, high-performance storage environment for MONRE’s growing data needs.
In totality, the new private cloud environment is designed to support a wide range of ministry
systems, including provincial natural resources and environment websites; land, water and mineral
databases; and meteorological, hygrograph and oceanography resources. To ensure that MONRE
staff would be able to maximize the full capabilities of the solution, the team provided the training
in order to promote a smooth transition. IBM’s knowledge and experience helped MONRE make the
move to a private cloud environment within two months.
Greater scalability, speed and sustainability
The benefits of the new solution have become readily apparent within the first few weeks of
deployment. For instance, the IT department can now quickly and securely deploy application
environments for various ministry departments, all managed in a cloud.
The platform’s self-service capabilities have also helped to greatly reduce administration time and
complexity, contributing to a lower total cost of ownership (TCO). The private cloud environment
has also helped the client respond with agility to spikes in demand, without requiring additional
investments in physical servers or storage. MONRE has also managed to consolidate its data into a
single cloud-based repository, making it easier for users to access vital information from a unified
source.