Case study
Azbil takes productivity leap through
virtualized shared infrastructure
HP Consulting Services deliver total support from road map
to design and construction
Industry
Manufacturing
Objective
Create a virtualized, shared infrastructure to reduce
the operating burden and power consumption
Approach
Developed a future roadmap for short term but
scalable system integration
IT matters
•Produced a long term roadmap for system
integration, allowing for future additions,
while meeting the three-month
implementation deadline
•Completed the efficient integration of multiple
systems into a virtualized shared infrastructure
•Consolidated 50 servers while allowing headroom
for future expansion
•Reduced the number of physical servers, to cut
power charges and simplify operation
Business matters
•Ensured the stable and secure operation of
50 varied systems
•Improves productivity by creating a standard
server environment for multiple user departments
“Rather than constructing systems individually, we wanted
to start from the items we can roll into the virtualized
shared infrastructure. This should allow us to again focus
on IT activities that contribute to work and business
instead of spending work hours on defensive tasks.”
– Ken Matsubara, Manager, Infrastructure Group, Information Systems Department, Azbil Corporation
Shared server environment paves the way for group-wide
efficiency gains
Japan’s Azbil Corporation, a leader in the manufacture of
measurement and control devices, had a complex and
disparate IT environment. To increase efficiency and support
growth, it wanted to construct a virtualized shared
infrastructure. HP Consulting Services provided support for
the creation of a system integration roadmap.
Case study | Azbil Corporation
Challenge
Support for expansion
Azbil Corporation is the core company of the
Azbil Group, founded in 1906 and a leader in
the field of measurement and
control technology.
Ken Matsubara
Manager
Infrastructure Group
Information Systems Department
Azbil Corporation
“Azbil realizes safety, comfort and fulfillment
in people’s lives and contribute to global
environment preservation through a
human-centered automation,” says
Ken Matsubara, Manager, Infrastructure
Group, Information Systems Department.
“The business is expanding along the three axes
of building, advanced and life automation.”
Azbil’s measurement and control solutions
include air conditioning and security for
buildings to automated control systems for
factories. Its unique AdaptivCOOL solution
optimizes air-conditioning and energy saving
by controlling air flow within data centers.
Toru Douzen
Assistant Manager
Infrastructure Group
Information Systems Department
Azbil Corporation
“We could no longer ignore the inefficiency
of system operation in increasingly complex
environments. Environments that had been
individually developed to support a variety
of businesses,” adds Matsubara. “There are
around 10,000 users including overseas and
partner companies. Increased efficiency had
been achieved by a policy of integrating some
parts but we were still not satisfied with the
level of achievement.”
The Infrastructure Group of the Information
Systems Department is responsible for
the design, construction and operation
of the infrastructure network. It provides
infrastructure for various business systems.
Tadahiro Yamase
Leader
Infrastructure Group
Information Systems Department
Azbil Corporation
Risa Watanabe
Infrastructure Second Team
Infrastructure Group
Information Systems Department
Azbil Corporation
2
“As we faced updating hardware for several
systems, the concept of virtualizing the
servers was brought up. We started on a plan
to build a virtualized shared infrastructure for
use by the whole company and first, we did a
study on integrating the 50 servers controlled
by the Information Systems Department,”
explains Toru Douzen, Assistant Manager,
Infrastructure Group, Information Systems
Department. “Items to be integrated included
systems that operate 24 hours a day,
365 days a year, as well as file servers. After
much discussion, we decided to use a shared
menu to meet high service level requests.”
Azbil sought advice from the HP Consulting
Services on the best way to create a
virtualized, shared infrastructure.
It had three requirements. Firstly, a mechanism
that could initially include 50 servers and
then expand in scale. Secondly, establish
operating procedures and backup procedures
to be applied into the future. Finally, build the
virtualized shared infrastructure in just
three months.
Solution
Scalability built in
The key challenge for HP was to design a
virtualized infrastructure that would allow
easy expansion of resources. It had to achieve
this while producing an integration roadmap
capable of adding enhanced functionality
in stages.
In addition, with the virtualized integrated
infrastructure, there was the problem of how
to efficiently maintain daily operation including
data backup.
“We had to reduce the staff burden for
operating multiple integrated server
environments,” says Tadahiro Yamase,
Leader, Infrastructure Group, Information
Systems Department.
Design and construction were completed in
three months. HP consultants proposed the
HP 3PAR F400 Field Starter Kit which supports
a small start and is also capable of capacity
and performance expansion without stopping
services. The virtualized shared infrastructure
was designed with shared storage as the
starting point.
“For servers, we can focus on the number of
consolidated virtual machines to ensure CPU
core/memory, and can expand by scaling out,”
says Douzen. “The key point here was the
scalability of storage products.”
In the first phase, two HP 3PAR F400 nodes
were introduced with 5TB capacity. HP ensured
scalability up to four nodes with 156TB,
not only increasing disks, but also adding
controllers, and updating firmware online.
“We were thinking about flexibility when server
consolidation advances even further in the
future,” says Douzen. “This holds multiple
business systems, so must not stop even when
doing increases or updates. It is very important
not to affect business.”
Case study | Azbil Corporation
Conventional Environment
Information Systems Department
Management System
Each Business Division
Management System
Subject system
Installation location
Inhouse
Data
center
Within
the division
Phase 1 (this time)
Information Systems Department
Management System
Hidetoshi Kimoto
Senior Manager
Systems Sales
Enterprise Group
Hewlett-Packard Japan, Ltd.
Installation location
Inhouse
Consolidation of servers
subject to virtualization
Business A
Business B Business C
Virtualized shared
infrastructure
Resource Pool
Phase 2
Kazuyuki Nakamura
Project Manager
Data Center Solutions,
Technology Consulting
Hewlett-Packard Japan, Ltd.
Information Systems Department Management System
Inhouse
Consolidation of servers
subject to virtualization
Business A
Business B Business C
Business D
Business E
Resource Pool
Advance
standardization
based on operation
at phase 1
● Resource
pool expansion
functions
● Operation
addition
Future Image
Each Business Division Management System
Information Systems Department Management System
Business A
Inhouse
Data Center
Consolidation of servers subject
to virtualization
Consolidation of servers subject
to virtualization
Business B
Business C
Division 1
Division 2
Business D
Business E
Division 3
● Division
systems
integration
Resource Pool
Resource Pool
● Resource
pool
expansion
3
Case study | Azbil Corporation
Customer solution
at a glance
Hardware
•HP 3PAR F400D Field Starter Kit
•HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8
•HP StorageWorks MSL Tape Library
Software
•VMware vSphere
•Backup Exec 2012
HP services
•HP Consulting Services
Yamase adds: “HP strongly emphasized the
importance of sharing backup tools in its
proposal. This was an important point for
reducing the burden of operation.”
In the first phase, the Infrastructure Group
was in charge of system area backup, and they
used a method of the user performing backup
for the data area. HP started out with a simple
operation method.
In the second phase, it used the HP 3PAR
multi-tenant function and snapshot function.
That makes this a plan that realizes backup of
large scale environments rationally without
causing a decrease in performance.
HP’s premier business partner Ryoyo Electro
was in charge of HP product sales and delivery.
Benefits
Server landscape reduced
The HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server was
used for the virtualized shared infrastructure.
HP integrated 50 servers with only three
HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8s and the new
environment is already being used by
several members of the Information
Systems Department.
Our solution partners
“By enhancing the scale and
functions on this virtualized
shared infrastructure, it will be
possible to create a private
cloud. We’d like to move
forward with integration of the
systems individually operated
by companies and the
Business Division.”
“The backup that was being performed in
conventional individual server units was
integrated, and by using differential backup,
the required time was also significantly
shortened,” added Yamase. “We believe we’ve
created an environment that allows us to
perform rational operations together with
utilization of the HP 3PAR storage functions.”
Risa Watanabe of the Infrastructure Second
Team, Infrastructure Group, Information
Systems Department added: “The technical
level of the shared infrastructure construction
was high, but the HP consultants prepared
operating procedure materials, and supported
us so we could operate independently.”
Douzen praised the work of the HP
consultants: “The cloud infrastructure
construction knowledge and design template
that the HP consultants provided was of great
value. I think we were able to succeed with
most of the objectives for the first phase.
By significantly reducing the number of
physical servers, we also succeeded in greatly
reducing power consumption and CO2.”
Matsubara concluded: “Looking over the whole
company, it’s as if the server environment
was renovated every month. Virtualization
was introduced quickly, so we had to avoid
crowding the virtual server environment.
In the future, rather than constructing
systems individually, we want to start from
the items we can roll into the virtualized
shared infrastructure. This should allow us to
again focus on IT activities that contribute to
work and business instead of spending work
hours on defensive tasks.”
Learn more at
hp.com/go/services
– Toru Douzen, Assistant Manager, Infrastructure
Group, Information Systems Department,
Azbil Corporation
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4AA4-9724ENW, November 2013