Taiheiyo Cement Corporation

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Secure and robust disaster recovery with great cost-efficiency using iSCSI.

"Previously, many servers had executed backup operation discretely. Server and storage consolidation made it possible to share the integrated backup environment. Disaster recovery through remote backup using iSCSI was achieved as well. And OPC dynamically shortened the time for service stoppage to one to three minutes at most, with no stoppage required for some services."

Taiheiyo Cement Corporation (hereafter called Taiheiyo Cement) is a leading company in the cement production industry. In the course of aggressive business activity,based on CSR management,it came to face an immediate need for backup process improvement and the building of a backup center from the standpoint of business continuity.

As the upgrade drew near, Taiheiyo Cement and Pacific System Corporation (hereafter called Pacific System),in charge of construction and management of the system for Taiheiyo Cement,decided to employ Fujitsu blade servers PRIMERGY BX620S2 and an ETERNUS4000 model 500 storage systems for server and storage consolidation.

A second ETERNUS4000 model 500 was introduced at their backup center enabling robust, secure and cost-efficient disaster recovery through remote backup using iSCSI to be achieved.

Constructing an information system with crisis response capability for business management based on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Cement serves as an indispensable material in the fabric of modern urban architecture. Taiheiyo Cement has been operating cement based businesses,including provision of raw concrete,secondary concrete products, and construction materials, for over 100 years.

Currently holding a dominant position in the domestic market,Taiheiyo Cement is working with a positive attitude to expand its business offshore. Starting with markets in Asia where growth demand is very apparent, it seeks to become a leading company on the Pacific Rim.
At the same time, it participates within the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). Having as its concept "a sustainable cement industry", it has started CSR management, through environmental business awareness,since 2004.

"In April 2005, the information security committee was set on the course of CSR management. This committee decided to check the capabilities of the information system physically and technically in crisis situations. Plus promote overall information security according to both a information system continuity plan and a business recovery plan. In 2006, the committee approved improvement of backup process and construction of a backup center," notes Mr. Hattori from Information Systems Department from Taiheiyo Cement.

The introduction process

Line costs were key to the choosing of ETERNUS.

There is another reason for the introduction of ETERNUS; and replacement of servers at the data center at this time.

Mr. Tajima from Pacific System,in charge of construction and management of Taiheiyo Cement's system,recalls "In the second half of 2006, before the server upgrade, we had several discussions with people from the Information Systems Department of Taiheiyo Cement on how to go about its information system requirements for the coming five years. Through these discussions, and taking server optimization and the size of the data center into consideration,we reached a conclusion based on blade servers; eventually deciding on Fujitsu's blade server PRIMERGY BX620S2. Fujitsu's forward looking suggestions and technology were the reasons why we chose Fujitsu."

Pacific System, a system integrator for Taiheiyo Cement group, listed on the JASDAQ exchange in April 2007.Their technological capabilities also seen outside of the group had been high evaluated. The request for the construction of a backup center was offered by Taiheiyo Cement just before making the final blade server decision.

"Through server and storage consolidation,we better saw the future direction for IT infrastructure optimization. When it came to choosing storage products,the remote backup function became key,as it helped create a backup center at a distant location. We started to discuss which,among several products including ETERNUS4000,to introduce." (Mr. Tajima)

Selection of products was done focusing on how robustly,securely and cost-efficiently they execute disaster recovery. Amongst the most important points was the running cost of the communication lines.

"ETERNUS4000 was the only product that allowed the use of low price IP lines through the Remote Advanced Copy function using iSCSI." (Mr. Tajima)

In addition,backup became another factor.

"The bottleneck with other vendors' products was that they needed to store data once before backup,and that took six hours. ETERNUS4000, with the One Point Copy (OPC) function,enabled backup could be executed directly at high-speed." noted Mr. Suzuki from Pacific System.

Mr. Tajima also added "Transferring only the updated portion of data (Changes) which would mean keeping down the amount of data to be transferred,appealed to us. The target data for disaster recovery amounts to 2TB and the daily updated data is ten to twenty percent of that. By using two 100Mbps rated B flets lines (where 30 to 40Mbps are used in practice), remote transfer can be completed in approximately five to seven hours. In addition, ETERNUS4000 also excelled at transaction control and data transfer to remote locations."

Fujitsu's total ability worked as an important factor behind the choice of ETERNUS4000.

"In terms of shortening time for recovery in cases of server failure,Fujitsu's middleware Systemwalker Resource Coordinator was best as it helped execute SAN Boot in a short time without failure. Meanwhile as we had used ETERNUS3000 at the data center,we had experience with ETERNUS. In addition,by using ETERNUS again, we could reuse our existing ETERNUS3000. There were various benefits from choosing Fujitsu"

System Outline

Remote backup was achieved using iSCSI.

Blade server operation started in October 2006 with a phased approach. Remote Backup with ETERNUS400 model 500 came on line in January 2007. Currently 31 PRIMERGY BX620S2 connect to an ETERNUS4000 model 500 SAN environment,which provides SAN Boot. Through Systemwalker Resource Coordinator,which is on a management server,management of the system is being executed in an integrated manner.

"In line with server consolidation by employing blade servers,storage was also consolidated using the ETERNUS4000 model 500 in the data center. And,for the new backup center where another ETERNUS4000 model 500 is being introduced,remote backup became possible using iSCSI and B flets. Further,backup data taken at the backup center will be stored on tapes then moved to remote locations."

The data subject to remote backup is mainly from the mission critical systems and accounting systems of the group companies. At the same time,to improve business continuity,a company unique effort has also been implemented.

"To respond to disasters occurred during copy operations to remote locations,we are doing generational management of data and building a system environment that simulates if the transferred data can move accurately." (Mr. Tajima)

Installation benefits and future expectations

OPC keeps down service stoppage time to less than three minutes.

"Remote backup has been processed smoothly, so that the fear that the amount of data to be transferred per day might reach the limit has been cleared." (Mr. Suzuki)

Centralized management of backup also delivered great advantage.

"Previously, many servers had executed backup operation discretely. Server and storage consolidation made it possible to share the integrated backup environment. Disaster recovery through remote backup using iSCSI was achieved as well. And OPC dynamically shortened the time for service stoppage to one to three minutes at most, with no stoppage required for some services. Various operations are now able to be managed centrally, and SAN Boot, of which we had concern,was also delivered. All of these led to reductions in management costs and increased efficiency of management operation." (Mr. Tajima)

On the subject of future prospects, Mr. Hattori says with sound consideration.

"Based on the information system continuity plan, we are examining ways to make sure that we can continue business operations at the backup center if any failure occurs in the data center, including how to recover a system identical to the primary one. In addition, we need to include more operations in the target of backup at the backup center including those at group companies.
Further, more specific measures have to be made to reduce Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and enhance business continuity."

User Profile
Company Name: Taiheiyo Cement Corporation
Headquarter location: St. Luke's Tower, 8-1, Akashi-cho. Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Establishment: May 1881
Capital: 69,500 million yen
Net sales: 313.4 billion yen (As of March 2007)
Consolidated net sales: 940.6 billion yen (As of March 2007)
Number of active employees: 2,031 (As of March 31, 2007)
URL: Taiheiyo Cement Corporation

Company Name: Pacific System Corporation
Location: 9-11, Daitenma-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Capital: 777 million yen
Number of employees: 397 (As of April 2007)
URL: Pacific System Corporation

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