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Cloud Computing

FSTJ 2011-10 Cover Image

2011-10 (Vol.47, No.4)


Fujitsu is now providing "Global Cloud Platform" service in global market, that commercially started in October 2010 in Japan as the name of "On-demand Virtual System Service" and has been called as "Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform 'FGCP/S5'" since June 2011 in Japan market. It is highly reliable, allowing it to be used in corporate core systems. Fujitsu also has global partnerships with companies including Microsoft. This special issue presents Fujitsu's wide-ranging approaches to cloud computing and gives some application examples.


2011-10 (Vol.47, No.4) Contents

1. Preface (500 KB)
We as the Fujitsu Group are consulted by many customers about the utilization of cloud computing and feel that they have expectations that can be roughly classified into three categories.The first is activities for overall optimization of the existing ICT assets. The second category is using cloud as a base for offering new services and creating value. As the third category, more and more customers have been prompted by the great earthquake to consider using cloud and other services from the perspective of disaster control and power limitation measures. In the cloud world, we intend to bring together the ICT technologies we have cultivated over many years and take advantage of our know-how in various services and human resources to continuously contribute to society and corporate activities. ---[Kazuo Ishida, Corporate Senior Executive Vice President and Director]
2. Fujitsu’s Approach to Cloud Computing (1.20 MB )
Cloud computing (hereafter cloud or clouds) has come to be specifically used in various fields. Private clouds are used in enterprises. Groups and individuals use public clouds. Clouds are also used by new businesses and for innovation. The cloud that Fujitsu is focusing on is one that serves as ICT infrastructure and that creates value when used to build new businesses and services with customers. Fujitsu is developing technology, products and solutions for this cloud as a comprehensive service. Fujitsu is aiming to help build an environmentally friendly and human-centric intelligent society by having this cloud used widely and safely in the social infrastructure field where ICT has yet to advance. This paper introduces the areas of application of such cloud, the strong points of Fujitsu's cloud, the use of cloud in society's infrastructure and the future direction to take in developing clouds. ---[Kenta Miyazawa]
3. Using Food and Agriculture Cloud to Improve Value of Food Chain (1.41 MB )
The agriculture and food industries (agriculture, fishery, related manufacturing and distribution industries and restaurants) of Japan are integrated through the food chain and form a large market worth 99.2 trillion yen in terms of domestic production. In demonstration experiments where agricultural production is assisted by means of information and communications technology (ICT) systems, which Fujitsu has been conducting since 2008, it has been found that agriculture has a close relation to its related industries, and when assisting agriculture it is necessary to consider the impact on the entire food chain. Of the challenges relevant to the entire food chain including agriculture, this paper discusses the stable supply of agricultural produce, stability of agricultural management, and improvement of food chain efficiency. It goes on to present ways of solving these challenges with cloud computing. The possibility that agricultural producers and stakeholders in the food chain will benefit from this food and agriculture cloud, which is intended to make contributions to all agriculture and food industries, is also described. ---[Yuichi Satake, Tomihiro Yamazaki]
4. Cloud Computing for Animal Medical Care (1.09 MB )
One ideal way of enjoying the benefits of cloud computing would be to build a social infrastructure of knowledge by storing knowledge in a cloud itself and offering it as a service in the same way as electricity and tap water. As one approach to building such social infrastructure, Fujitsu is working on applying cloud computing to the field of medical care for animals (companion animals). However there are problems in this field. For example, information about medical treatment is not recorded in a manner that allows it to be easily shared and there are no established systems for extracting information to deliver it to the persons concerned. We conducted a proof-of-concept experiment on a solution to these problems by means of utilizing data on a public cloud capable of centrally storing information and allowing it to be shared and utilized as required. Through this experiment, we showed how a cloud as social infrastructure can make social contributions and demonstrated an information-sharing model made possible only by a cloud serving as social infrastructure. This paper presents Fujitsu's activities to achieve these goals and related discussions. ---[Hisato Minami, Akira Imabayashi]
5. Media Cloud Service with Optimized Video Processing and Platform (876 KB)
Recently, video traffic on the Internet has been increasing dramatically as video services including video sharing sites (YouTube, Netflix etc.), Internet broadcasting and video on demand (VOD) services become popular. In addition, smartphones and tablet PCs are becoming more and more popular, and there is a fusion of broadcasting and the Internet, as in Google TV and Apple TV. These factors mean that consumers are likely to increasingly use video content. Under these circumstances, there has been an increasing need among enterprises for work styles that make use of video. Fujitsu has rich experience and know-how in fields such as IP codecs, which are used by 80% of broadcasting stations in Japan and the three major North American broadcasting stations (ABC, CBS and NBC), IP networking and ICT systems. We intend to support customers' businesses by taking advantage of these technologies we have cultivated. This paper describes media cloud services, which offer media processing around the trusted cloud services in a platform as a service (PaaS) environment. ---[Kenichi Ota, Hiroaki Kubota, Tomonori Gotoh]
6. Practice of M2M Connecting Real-World Things with Cloud Computing (948 KB)
Machine-to-Machine (M2M) means connecting many machines with a management center via wide-area mobile or satellite networks in order to monitor and control them. M2M has been used in various fields before. However, M2M is now undergoing a dramatic revolution. This is because we can more easily gather and analyze many pieces of information using recent improvements in telecommunication techniques and services and the appearance of cloud computing. Connecting real-world machines with the cloud and gathering much information will produce many new business opportunities through not only improving products and customer services, but also through selling that information. On the other hand, the requirements that M2M infrastructure needs to meet have also been changing with the appearance of the cloud. This paper will explain these new requirements and problems, introduce the solutions proposed by Fujitsu, and give some examples. ---[Tatsuzo Osawa]
7. Engineering Cloud: Flexible and Integrated Development Environment (1.31 MB )
Nowadays product development must be done speedily and in a way that can respond to changing business environments. Fujitsu has created a development environment that uses technical computing and is known as Flexible Technical Computing Platform (FTCP), on a cloud. Fujitsu is providing it as Engineering Cloud to its customers and Product Development Department. Based on an example of applying Engineering Cloud to mobile phones, this paper describes the characteristics of FTCP, an overview of Fujitsu's Engineering Cloud service and its merits, and technology for promptly displaying the results of large-scale simulations, which is important technology for achieving Engineering Cloud. Based on Fujitsu's know-how that it has accumulated during its in-house operation of Engineering Cloud, it has become possible to link the created FTCP and customers' existing development environments. This in turn raises hopes for a shortened product development time and higher product quality. ---[Seiichi Saito, Akira Ito, Hiromu Matsumoto, Eiji Ohta]
8. Approach to Services Using Personal Health Records (PHRs) (1.10 MB )
Due to an aging society and the increase of the average life expectancy in recent years, a common hope for people is to enjoy their lives at an old age instead of being unhealthy. Nevertheless, the rate of lifestyle disease patients over the age of 40 is significantly high and the large expense of the health-care system contribution for the elderly is a significant portion of the total medical care expenses of the entire nation. To tackle this problem, preventive healthcare that uses personal health records (PHRs) has been studied carefully in the pursuit of a solution. However, PHR data is scattered in various places nowadays: diagnostic information is managed at medical institutions, medical examination information at medical examination institutions or insurers (corporate health insurance associations, etc.), exercise information at fitness clubs and certain personal information such as weight at home. For this reason, it is important to gather those kinds of PHR data and provide them as IT solutions so that the PHR data is available anytime, anywhere and on any terminal. Fujitsu has been working to develop such a healthcare platform system, which gathers and utilizes PHR data, as a cloud service. Currently it is at a feasibility study phase to validate the service's effectiveness, by means of running its prototype system with trial users who are Fujitsu employees. This paper outlines the trial project and describes Fujitsu's approach to deliver the PHR-based healthcare services platform. ---[Ryuichi Umekawa, Hiroshi Ishizuka, Toru Oshima]
9. Platform for Location-Based Services (1.73 MB )
Fujitsu is creating new values and services by gathering massive amounts of data generated in actual societies, and analyzing them with information and communications technology (ICT). We have constructed a platform for location-based services in a cloud computing environment. It solves a wide range of location-based problems, as typified by traffic congestion, by using positional information collected through the Global Positioning System (GPS). As the first version, we have started providing services of a function to generate floating-car-data-based traffic information, a function to conduct Point Of Interest (POI) searches and an optimum path finding function. We will provide the following services which include a function to utilize massive quantities of collected data controlled by the platform for location-based services. It can be used in various ways. For example, it can be used as an application component, as an application platform utilization service, and as an application platform accessed from systems constructed for users inside the platform for location-based services. In the years ahead, we plan to expand its content, services and functions, and create some additional value by diversifying its data collection fields. ---[Kyohei Tamai, Akio Shinagawa]
10. Infrastructure Technology for Cloud Services (849 KB)
The application of a new information and communications technology (ICT) model called cloud computing is finally moving into a full-scale deployment phase in the corporate world as a new business infrastructure and in diverse fields such as primary industry, medical care, and nursing to improve productivity. To expand use of the "cloud," that is, to dispel worries about using cloud computing, Fujitsu came to reevaluate, redesign, and redevelop its cloud infrastructure technology from the architecture level to achieve a higher dimension in both convenience and reliability. These efforts led to the launching in October 2010 of a commercialized cloud service called "On-demand Virtual System Service" (now known as the "Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform 'FGCP/S5'" service in Japan and as the "Global Cloud Platform [GCP]" service globally). This "Made in Fujitsu" infrastructure technology is being expanded to data centers in six countries including Japan to promote the provision of cloud services on a global scale. This paper introduces Fujitsu's cloud infrastructure technology and the global expansion of Fujitsu cloud services. ---[Toru Kino]
11. FGCP/A5: PaaS Service Using Windows Azure Platform (1.15 MB )
In August 2011, Fujitsu started offering Fujitsu Global Cloud Platform "FGCP/A5" Powered by Windows Azure service (hereinafter, FGCP/A5) as part of a strategic partnership with Microsoft announced in July 2010. This service—the only Azure service offered in Japan—is provided from Fujitsu's domestic data centers. Fujitsu is initially providing FGCP/A5 with the same level of functionality as the Windows Azure public cloud service provided by Microsoft but plans to link it to its existing cloud services and middleware products. Furthermore, listening closely to customer feedback, Fujitsu will use FGCP/A5 as an opportunity to enhance its original, high-value-added services and expand its own cloud services. This paper introduces the application scope of FGCP/A5, its service menu, and examples of its initial application. ---[Hitoshi Monma]
12. Middleware for Supporting Private Clouds (1.02 MB )
Cloud computing is attracting attention because it enables speedy construction of systems in response to rapidly changing business environments and helps reduce expanding information and communications technology (ICT) costs. There are two forms of cloud computing. One is a public cloud, where service providers provide their cloud services to a number of customers. The other is a private cloud, where a company's information system department provides company-specific cloud services to all sections of that company and its group companies. These two forms have a symbiotic relationship, and users can choose between them in accordance with their requirements for governance, security, reliability, and networks. Fujitsu is meeting various needs of customers by offering middleware products to construct a private cloud system in addition to providing public cloud services. In this paper, we introduce an outline of our middleware products that can reduce ICT costs and enable speedy construction of systems in a private cloud environment. ---[Shigeaki Nitoh, Hiroshi Nagakura, Akihiko Sakurai]
13. Fujitsu's Approach to Cloud-related Information Security (765 KB)
Cloud computing opens up a variety of possibilities but at the same time it raises new concerns about information security. To enable users to safely enjoy the benefits of cloud computing, it is necessary to consider both general measures for information security that have conventionally been employed and information security measures tailored to cloud computing. To address these concerns and enable customers to use Fujitsu's cloud services with peace of mind, Fujitsu is implementing various measures such as establishing information security controls within the Fujitsu Group and introducing advanced information security technologies. This paper describes Fujitsu's security governance of cloud services, its approach to compliance-related issues, and the measures it has implemented to maintain information security. ---[Masayuki Okuhara, Takuya Suzuki, Tetsuo Shiozaki, Makoto Hattori]
14. Fujitsu's Plan for Targeting INTARFRM Application Framework at Individual Developers (1.33 MB )
Today's uncertain economic conditions are forcing companies to change the way they do business. A significant change is the increasing use of cloud computing. Moreover, applications have become consumer products thanks to the rapid consumer adoption of portable terminals typified by the smartphone. In line with these trends, Fujitsu's "INTARFRM" application framework, which currently contributes to the development of medium- to large-scale information and communications technology (ICT) enterprise systems, is well positioned for contributing to the efforts of "individual developers." Fujitsu has developed a plan for targeting INTARFRM at individual software developers, such as computer science students and freelance software developers, and for providing a service that combines a customized version of INTARFRM for such users with an Internet-accessible cloud-type development center. Furthermore, by adding new service concepts not found in existing system integration (SI) business practices to this "contribution plan," Fujitsu can develop a new INTARFRM business model that provides benefits for the user and differentiates Fujitsu from its competitors. ---[Tooru Yasuraoka]
15. Network Technology Supporting an Intelligent Society: WisReed (1.21 MB )
Fujitsu intends to help achieve an intelligent society by providing cloud-based solutions to social issues, such as energy-saving measures to counter global warming and safety-improvement measures to guard against disasters. To that end, it is necessary to densely and widely deploy different types of sensors to collect data on such things as energy usage, river levels, and structural deterioration in an accurate and timely manner and then aggregate that data in a cloud. One problem with this is the cost of constructing and operating an infrastructure for the required enormous number of sensors, and this has hindered the implementation of a sensor network. Accordingly, Fujitsu has developed "WisReed" technology for autonomously forming a network to facilitate the collection of sensor data. This paper describes the background of WisReed's development and its technological features, presents a case example of its adoption for smart metering, and discusses potential applications, which are expected to expand. ---[Yuji Takahashi, Kazuya Kawashima, Yuta Nakaya, Tatsuya Ichikawa]
16. Convergence Service Platform (927 KB)
The environment surrounding the information and communications technology (ICT) business has been changing during the past few years against the backdrop of an increasingly complex and borderless society. Fujitsu is developing an ICT platform on its trusted cloud that collects and analyzes large amounts of sensor data from people wearing radio-frequency identification chip sensors and devices. To deliver in a timely manner an ICT environment for real-time processing of massive amounts of data, Fujitsu intends to form tie-ups with business partners as needed rather than develop the necessary platform completely on its own. From a technological aspect, Fujitsu aims to achieve high-speed processing by using new technologies such as parallel distributed processing with complex event processing and Hadoop software. ---[Goro Kobayashi, Kazuhiko Fujita]
17. Changes to Ubiquitous Devices Brought by Cloud Computing (1.10 MB )
In general, the greater the use of cloud computing, the lower the computing power needed by client devices. This leads to an increased degree of freedom in design, generating expectations of ubiquitous devices that are optimized to suit the particular way they are used. Tablet PCs are one example of such devices, and various types have been released in recent years, reflecting usage scenarios that are unthinkable with conventional personal computers (PCs). Fujitsu is also planning to release new ubiquitous devices, and with them, it intends to provide added value and to contribute to a Human-Centric Society by implementing new technologies that take advantage of cloud computing. ---[Kenji Urita, Makoto Uchishima]

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