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Next-Generation Data Centers in Cloud Age

2010-10 (Vol.46, No.4)

This special issue presents the leading-edge technologies that produce merits of data centers on Next-Generation Data Centers in the Cloud Age. Here, Fujitsu's idea of a grand design for next-generation data centers are presented. Fujitsu's approaches, focusing on the latest technologies implemented in the new annex of the Tatebayashi System Center located in Gunma Prefecture in Japan, and application examples of Cloud services that make use of these technologies are also presented.

2010-10 (Vol.46, No.4) Contents

1. Preface (516 KB): Fujitsu Group has established system centers in 58 locations in Japan since it opend the first system center in 1995. This special issue presents the leading-edge technologies that produce merits of data centers on Next-Generation Data Centers in the Cloud Age. Here, Fujitsu's idea of a grand design for next-generation data centers are presented. Fujitsu's approaches, focusing on the latest technologies implemented in the new annex of the Tatebayashi System Center located in Gunma Prefecture in Japan, and application examples of Cloud services that make use of these technologies are also presented. ---[Kazuo Ishida, Corporate Senior Executive Vice President and Director]

2. Grand Design for Next-Generation Data Centers (1.15 MB ): Along with changes in customers' businesses and social environments, there has been an evolution in the roles and capabilities that data centers should have. They play an increasingly important role because of the emergence of Cloud computing models and the expansion of IT for addressing major social challenges including the falling birthrate and aging population and environmental issues. The required capabilities are also becoming more sophisticated in all fields such as advanced IT, data analysis, operation technologies, risk and security management and environmental measures, in addition to facilities management as a consolidated center of technologies and know-how. In the future, utilization of these kinds of consolidated assets and their timely update and development according to changes in the social environment will become important activities. This paper discusses Fujitsu's latest activities accompanying the new roles and capabilities of data centers and the ideal type of data center to aim at in future. ---[Toru Kino]

3. Service Value Maximization with Evolving Operational Service Platform (1.31 MB ): Fujitsu's data centers have a framework called an operational service platform at the core of customers' IT system operations. It provides the high-value-added operational services of security, safety and stability centered on humans and technology. It consists of human-technology collaboration and know-how, including a system monitoring function, in which the center operator constantly monitors the entire IT system for the customer, and also implements operations required for maintenance and failure recovery. In today's severe economic environment, there has been an increasing sense of disparity between the value provided by services and the value that customers recognize and demand. Customers want to use operational services that are higher-value-added and lower cost than ever. With the opening of the Tatebayashi System Center's new annex, located in Gunma Prefecture in Japan, we formulated a concept of a next-generation operational service platform to address these demands. This paper presents that overall concept and gives details of Fujitsu's specific activities for it. ---[Masanobu Uda, Ryo Adachi, Gentaro Takehara, Ryouji Kai]

4. IT Infrastructure of Data Center Services Based on ITIL (752 KB): Fujitsu's data center services have been received favorably by customers and are growing steadily. As customers' businesses become more dependent on IT, however, their demands have increased and diversified to include a higher quality of service, enhanced security and support for internal control. In addition, now that the reduction of IT costs has become a key challenge for customers, they have higher expectations for data center services as a means of reducing operational costs, which account for 70% of their IT-related costs, and there are the conflicting demands of a better service level and lower-cost services. This paper presents the improvement and standardization of service processes based on ITIL that we have worked on to address the above-mentioned challenges. It also covers the establishment of a new service infrastructure to assist with and manage the reliable implementation of standardized processes. ---[Kazuo Tomoda]

5. Trends of Energy Saving in Data Centers and Fujitsu Group's Approach (908 KB): Tackling global environmental issues is a major challenge for ICT companies. The Fujitsu Group considers it an ICT company's responsibility not only to work on reducing the CO₂ emitted from its plants, but also to help reduce the CO₂ generated by ICT devices through their own energy-saving measures, and to utilize ICT to reduce CO₂ in all fields of society. The greater volume of information used by the Internet has unavoidably led to data centers consuming more power. Therefore, data centers must become more energy-efficient to reduce the load that the whole of society places on the environment. The Fujitsu Group has introduced a number of technologies to improve energy efficiency at data centers. These include technologies to conserve energy at its facilities such as efficient air conditioning, lighting and power supplies, as well as energy-saving ICT devices including servers, and technologies to integrate and virtualize ICT infrastructure. ---[Mitsuru Otagiri, Michinori Kutami]

6. Technology for Constructing Environmentally Friendly Data Centers and Fujitsu's Approach (928 KB): In recent years, IT devices such as servers have come to have high performance and be highly integrated and their processing performance has greatly improved. Because of that, they are consuming more power and emitting more heat. It should be noted that there is an increase not only in the energy needed to power high-density racks, but also in the energy used to cool them. Against this background, Fujitsu has developed an overall framework of technology for constructing environmentally friendly data centers. Based on this framework, Fujitsu is promoting technological development and application. In this paper, we overview our technology and introduce our approach in the new annex of the Tatebayashi System Center located in Gunma Prefecture in Japan. ---[Hiroshi Nagazono]

7. Construction Technology Used for New Annex of Tatebayashi System Center (1.83 MB ): For data centers, consideration for the environment as well as ensuring functionality, performance and safety have become important themes in recent years. The new annex of the Tatebayashi System Center, located in Gunma Prefecture in Japan, which was planned as a next-generation data center, was built using the latest technology introduced in relation to those themes. From the viewpoint of safety and consideration for the environment relating to construction, this paper presents the recent trends and construction technology used in building the new annex of the Tatebayashi System Center. ---[Atsushi Masuda, Yoshimasa Ajima]

8. Optimization of IT Load and Facility Energy in Data Centers (1,009 KB): While the convenience of data centers is attracting attention and demand for them is increasing, the amount of energy they consume has been increasing. This is because they use an increased amount of electricity and require greater air-conditioning to cool server rooms due to the increased load of the IT devices installed there. To reduce such energy consumption, there are needs for energy-saving measures and the ratio of facility energy to IT load of server rooms needs to be optimized. Aiming to implement these measures, Fujitsu has developed an energy-saving operation management system and introduced it in the new annex of the Tatebayashi System Center, located in Gunma Prefecture in Japan. The purpose is to conduct detailed monitoring (visualization) on electric power, temperature and wind velocity in relation to IT load, and thereby computerize efficient methods of operation to optimize facility energy. This paper presents the characteristic functions of and future outlook for this energy-saving operation management system. ---[Kunio Fukumoto, Nobuyuki Tamura, Hideki Ishibashi]

9. Environmentally Friendly, Energy-saving Air-conditioning System (1.23 MB ): Amid the recession, it is said that business operators will tend to outsource more and more so that they can gather their IT resources in one place, improve their efficiency and reduce their costs. Data centers are at the heart of this outsourcing, and they consume a large amount of electricity. They need to use electricity safely and efficiently. Against this social background, a new annex of the Tatebayashi System Center, located in Gunma Prefecture in Japan, has implemented an energy-saving air-conditioning system as a measure to try to reduce its environmental impact. This paper introduces an outline of this measure to optimize air conditioning implemented in the server room, based on the cooling method for greening that has been newly introduced this time. In addition, it introduces the effect of the measure that makes the best use of the advantages of scale at the data center. ---[Tomoaki Haneda]

10. Highly Secure, User-Friendly Physical Security for Tatebayashi System Center (1.05 MB ): The system departments in companies and government offices where information technology (IT) is rapidly evolving face various issues as they come to own an increasing number of servers. In particular, they must procure appropriate equipment and implement disaster-prevention and security measures to ensure stable server operation. However, arranging for robust electrical and air conditioning facilities that can withstand earthquakes, fires, and other calamities and implementing strict security measures on one's own can be extremely costly. Consequently, the demand for data centers has been growing in various industries and the data center market has been expanding in recent years. To remain competitive in this market, Fujitsu places considerable importance on physical security at its system centers so that customers can rest assured that their IT resources are safe and secure. This paper introduces the advanced physical security features of the new annex of Fujitsu's Tatebayashi System Center, located in Gunma Prefecture in Japan, which opened in November 2009. ---[Hijiri Kawakita]

11. Security Architectures for Cloud Computing (1,011 KB): Moving computing into the "Cloud" makes computer processing much more convenient for users but also presents them with new security problems about safety and reliability. To solve these problems, service providers must establish and provide security architectures for Cloud computing. This paper describes domestic and international trends in security requirements for Cloud computing, along with security architectures proposed by Fujitsu such as access protocol, authentication and identity (ID) management, and security visualization. ---[Masayuki Okuhara, Tetsuo Shiozaki, Takuya Suzuki]

12. Network Platform for Next-Generation Data Centers (1.38 MB ): A data center must be able to deploy information technology (IT) systems rapidly in the ever-changing business environment surrounding its customers. It must also be able to visualize the state of energy use by data-center facilities in response to Green IT initiatives and the need to reduce energy costs. To satisfy these requirements, Fujitsu has constructed two network platforms applicable to next-generation data centers at the new annex of its Tatebayashi System Center located in Gunma Prefecture in Japan. One is an optical network platform for customers using wide-area Ethernet technology, and the other is an environmental monitoring sensor network for data center management using ad hoc technology. This paper describes the objectives and actual effects of constructing and implementing them and touches upon future developments. ---[Masakazu Fukaya, Hideki Ishibashi, Masashi Arai]

13. Service Oriented Platform (1.17 MB ): Fujitsu is developing a service oriented platform (SOP) as an infrastructure for providing emerging Cloud services. As a combination of servers, storage systems, networks, and software, SOP is an optimal platform for Cloud-era services merging virtualization and operation technologies. SOP design objectives and the architecture for achieving them are discussed with a focus on server-centric virtualization for automatically developing application systems from the viewpoint of servers and an evolution-oriented architecture for extending and upgrading the service platform without interrupting services. Virtual system packaging, dynamic resource management, and operations management are also presented as key elemental technologies for SOP design. ---[Hiroshi Yoshida, Riichiro Take, Hiro Kishimoto, Yoshinobu Hibi]

14. On-Demand Virtual System Service (693 KB): Cloud computing, which enables information and communications technology (ICT) capacity to be used over the network, is entering a genuine expansion phase for enterprises as an effective means of reducing up-front investments and using ICT more effectively. One Cloud service, infrastructure as a service (IaaS), enables the use of virtual machines, virtual storage, and virtual networks on an as-needed, when-needed basis. IaaS can be used by many enterprises regardless of their type or scale of business and can be used in either a public, virtual-private, or private format. Fujitsu provides IaaS through its "on-demand virtual system service" with easy-configuration, on-demand, and self-service features designed for enterprise use. This service enables enterprises to use ICT resources in line with their business strategies and to free themselves from hardware lifecycles. However, enterprises must become familiar with application-development techniques applicable to virtualization and distributed processing. As enterprise ICT expands to include clients and customers, the use of Cloud services is becoming indispensable to business. ---[Yasutaka Taniuchi]

15. Fujitsu's Approach to Platform as a Service (PaaS) (1.13 MB ): Software as a service (SaaS) has been deployed primarily for general-purpose applications, but recently it has been increasingly used for industrial applications. In addition to being used for existing non-routine tasks, it is beginning to be introduced in individual businesses as part of the systems integration for mission-critical tasks. Although investment in information technology (IT) is starting to show signs of recovery for corporate information systems, a long-term vision still remains hard to achieve. This has resulted in a growing tendency for investment decisions to be made on the basis of concepts such as small-scale rapid development and in-house design/development/operation in order to construct systems that are not contingent on external factors. At the same time, service provider customers are increasing their expectations and demanding not only a simple provision of functionality but also the proposal of a framework that contributes to the success of their business. Using case examples, this paper describes Fujitsu's efforts to address these evolving market demands by providing a platform as a service (PaaS), where an application development and execution environment is provided as a service. It also introduces our future plans and the services we will provide. ---[Shoji Wajima]

16. Next-Generation Data Center Outsourcing Services (1.39 MB ): In conventional data center outsourcing services, such as housing and hosting, information technology resources and human operators have to be secured individually for each client. This means that data centers are easily affected by constraints on physical hardware and human resources, resulting in problems such as long lead times and insufficient flexibility to accept short-term contracts. We have therefore been researching and developing a next-generation data center outsourcing service based on virtualization and autonomy techniques. With this service, we aim to provide our customers with faster, less expensive, and more flexible data center services. To illustrate our efforts toward the development of a next-generation data center outsourcing service, this paper introduces an on-demand hosting service and an organic storage service that we are now offering on a commercial basis. ---[Minoru Kamoshida, Tomonori Hayashi, Shunsuke Takagi]

17. Application of Cloud Computing to Agriculture and Prospects in Other Fields (1.14 MB ): Most of the information technology (IT) systems currently used by Japanese farmers are used for duties such as filing tax records and traceability records to meet the requirements of non-farmers in the government and distribution industry. We focused on introducing the latest technologies such as sensors, wireless networks, and Cloud computing to radically revise approaches to agriculture and conduct business feasibility studies to establish a hypothetical model of Cloud services that make a genuine contribution to agriculture. We have conducted demonstration tests with the cooperation of two Japanese farming corporations. This hypothetical model has much in common with on-site operations such as medical/nursing care and maintenance besides agriculture, so we are working to develop it across a broader range of fields. On the basis of the knowledge acquired through actual agricultural operations and subsequent analysis, we describe the affinity between agriculture and Cloud computing and discuss how the technologies used in the demonstration test can be applied to other fields. ---[Mitsuyoshi Hori, Eiji Kawashima, Tomihiro Yamazaki]

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