The University of Tokyo

Since its establishment in 1877, the University of Tokyo has been a leader in Japanese university education and scientific research. With its incorporation as a national university, the university’s information system headquarters set forward a reorganization and business reformation strategy based on reviewing all campus requirements. As a first step, they decided to gradually consolidate servers which had been individually installed. This was to address the key theme of building a common system infrastructure for campus operation. Focused on cost reductions, consolidation, and flexibility, they installed “PRIMERGY BX620” blade servers and Hyper-V 2.0 virtualization software as the common system infrastructure. The verification of Hyper-V 2.0 at the Fujitsu Hyper-V virtualization center underpinned this decision.

Overview

• Industry
  National University Corporation
• Hardware
  Blade Server PRIMERGY BX620 S5, Storage ETERNUS 2000 Model 200
  
• Software
  Windows 2008 R2 with Hyper-V 2.0
  

Customer’s Background

In 2010 the University of Tokyo set out to establish a common information architecture

The University of Tokyo was the first national university in Japan. It has stood at the educational forefront since being established in 1877 and is a leader in domestic university education and scientific research. It has also been developing its graduates to play leadership roles in a broad range of industries both domestically and overseas. Currently, there are 10 departments, 15 post graduate education sections, 11 academic laboratories, and 15 all-campus centers. Overall there are around 28,800 students and 9,700 faculty and staff.

In 2004, with the incorporation of national universities, the functions of information systems on campus were drastically changed. In addition the University of Tokyo was also proactively promoting reorganization and business reformation.
“Up to then, every designated national university across the entire country had shared the load, and one national university information system had been built. However, each university was now constructing their own information systems based on their particular circumstances. The role of the information system divisions at universities was now becoming similar to that of a general enterprise. Our University was aiming at cost reductions, improvements in the efficiency of operations management, and strong governance. The information system division took the initiative to create a basic policy and started working on the implementation and operation of a new system.” said Mr. Tamatsukuri, Deputy Director-General, Information and communication systems division at the University of Tokyo.

Challenge

Adopting blade server and vitualization technology into common information infrastructure

The internal operational system at the University of Tokyo had been implemented by individual division. As a result hardware resources were not effectively utilized across the overall campus.
“While it had been partial optimized, we now aimed at total optimization of our campus and our basic policy was to consolidate the operation as much as possible. Renewal of our operational system infrastructure was the first step towards that total optimization.” Mr. Tamatsukuri said, talking about their intentions.

Consolidating dispersed servers and then developing a common infrastructure is the easiest way to system optimization, as well as reducing costs. The University’s requirement for the new system was the use of virtualization technology as an efficient method of achieving that optimization. Fujitsu was the partner the University of Tokyo chose for this.

“We emphasized reliability, easy installation, and stability, not just cost savings and the experience of creating a common infrastructure. We also expected Fujitsu to provide their support ability in virtualization technology,” said Mr. Tamatsukuri.

Solution

Operational verification of “Hyper-V 2.0” at Hyper-V Virtualization center

Fujitsu’s proposal for the common infrastructure was a combination of “PRIMERGY BX620 S5” blade servers and the virtualization software Hyper-V, in order to increase system density. “As Hyper-V is offered as a standard function of the operating system and many systems are adopting Windows OS, it is very easy to test.” said Mr. Makoto Nakamura, Lecturer in the Information and communication systems division.

The University had adopted Hyper-V V1.0 in 2008 for a portal site system when they had verified the software. “Challenges with Hyper-V V1.0, like limitations in storage design and the time needed for migration came to the surface. The new version of Hyper-V2.0, released in Fall, 2009 had the brand new functions of Cluster Shared Volume and Live Migration. These new functions could potentially resolve our concerns. So we requested Fujitsu to validate Hyper-V2.0 operation” said Mr. Nakamura.

Operational validation was performed at the Fujitsu Virtualization Center in what was then the Fujitsu Platform Solution Center (Now renamed as Fujitsu Trusted Cloud Square). Not only the validation result, but also the high capability and know-how available at the Fujitsu Platform Solution Center supported their decision point to choose FUJITSU. “We chose Hyper-V2.0 because of Fujitsu’s support” said Mr. Tamatsukuri.

Future scenarios

Enhanced the resource using Live Migration without stopping the system

In June 2009, the University decided to adopt Fujitsu’s proposal. In September, they commenced system testing and the cutover took place in December. Using Hyper-V2.0, five information systems consisting of the campus portal site, the common ID management system, chemical management, the health and safety management system, and the facilities management system, were consolidated onto PRIMERGY Blade Servers using a range of operating systems including Windows Server 2008R2 and Windows Server 2003. A Fujitsu ETERNUS 2000 Model 200 storage device was also used for data back up. Mr. Nakamura is appreciative of the effect of the new virtualized systems. “We promoted some new business applications, and didn’t need to find additional hardware. This allowed us to quickly offer the new services. In our system, there is an average of 5 virtual servers per blade server and there is still room for more. Moreover, the down-time required for security updates has shortened and management costs have also reduced.

“When we added more server blades and upgraded the memory in March 2010, we used the Live Migration function. As a result, we upgraded the resources without stopping the operational systems and as an added advantage, we were able to do this work during the daytime.”

In terms of future development, Mr. Tamatsukuri explained their plan as follows. “We will consolidate all campus operational systems onto the new common infrastructure as far as possible and we will proceed with new projects according to this plan. We expect Fujitsu to continue their support of our projects.”

Fujitsu will contribute to the expansion of the University’s infrastructure, as well as supporting their progress, by the application of its technology including blade servers and virtualization skills.

About The University of Tokyo

Address : 3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Year of Establishment : 1877
Number of Student : 28,800 (As of May 1, 2010)
Number of faculty and staff : 9,700 (As of May 1, 2010)
Overview :
The University of Tokyo was established in 1877 as the first national university in Japan. As a leading research university, the University of Tokyo offers courses in essentially all academic disciplines at both undergraduate and graduate levels and conducts research across the full spectrum of academic activity.
Website : The University of Tokyo

Note:
Information in this case study, including figures, names and job titles are based on information supplied at the published date and may have changed when this information is viewed.