Tokyo, July 01, 2010
Fujitsu today announced that it recently worked with the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) to build an on-campus private cloud to be utilized by JAIST's 1,500 students, faculty, and administrative staff in Japan. The new service has began operations in phases, starting March 2010.
With the new cloud, students and faculty will have access to the computing resources they need, when they need them, for whatever purposes and time periods their research in advanced science and technology require. In the past, the computing resources that were available for R&D operated at only about 10% of capacity on average. By raising that utilization rate to 90% through the private cloud, JAIST seeks to make the most of its investment.
As the service will be used mainly for research, the servers and software will be under unified on-campus administration allowing JAIST to manage and provision the computing resources needed for research, while ensuring that students and faculty have flexible access to the best possible computing environment.
An additional benefit is reduced energy demands. As the new system will consume 48% less energy, JAIST will reduce its CO2 emissions by as much as 120 tons per year (equivalent to the CO2 absorption of 8,571 cedar trees(1)).
JAIST is considering expanding its on-campus private cloud to cover the library's collections management system, academic affairs system, and other administrative systems.
Fujitsu looks forward to working with JAIST as a partner with ongoing operational support for the private cloud.
Background
JAIST was founded nationally in 1990 as a new kind of graduate school for providing graduate-level education and conducting research on advanced topics in science and technology at the highest global standards. Since then, the JAIST School of Information Science has been the main driver behind the creation of an advanced ICT environment that easily supports the creation, accumulation, and usage of information and research data. Notably, starting in 2006, the institute began transitioning away from standalone PCs for students, faculty, and staff, and moving towards an ICT environment with thin clients and some 120 servers under unified administration. To make more effective use of the individual servers, which often had low utilization rates, the institute became interested in converting the server environment to a cloud-type system based on virtualization, and conducted some small-scale tests for a few years.
Based on that testing, JAIST and Fujitsu spent roughly four months building an on-campus private cloud to serve the entire institute, and in March 2010 began a phased rollout of service to the 1,500 students, faculty, and administrative staff. The new system is built around 51 of Fujitsu's PRIMERGY BX920 blade servers and the VMWare vSphere™ 4 Enterprise server virtualization software.
About the On-Campus Private Cloud
1. Features
With the introduction of the on-campus private cloud, what had previously been 120 Fujitsu PC servers were consolidated down to 30 using virtualization technology, and another 21 were added mainly for tasks involved in research – all PRIMERGY BX920 servers under unified administration. Having an on-campus private cloud means that critical information, such as research results, is stored on campus, which can reduce the time needed for evaluations and surveys.
2. Results
Whereas the institute previously had installed enough servers to meet expected maximum access levels and utilization peaks, the periods of maximum server demand for faculty and scholars varied greatly, so that average utilization rates were below 10%. With the new service, resources can be shared between virtual servers, allowing for higher utilization rates. If additional servers and software are needed temporarily for a new research project, they can be accessed online as a part of this service. This eliminates the time and paperwork involved in acquiring new servers, allowing new research projects to get up and running more quickly.
In addition, as all the servers in this system are administered under an on-campus cloud management system, tasks such as server upgrades, and software or OS updates can be handled easily in a batch. This is expected to greatly reduce administrative costs and operating costs.
The new system also has the benefit of reducing energy demands, and its 48% reduction in electrical power is estimated to reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 120 tons per year (equivalent to the CO2 absorption of 8,571 cedar trees).
3. Future Expansion
JAIST is considering expanding the on-campus private cloud service to cover the library's collections management system, academic affairs system, and other administrative servers. By allowing computing resources to be used effectively for science and technology computation during low-demand periods, the service is expected to reach 90% utilization rates to maximize return on investment.
Fujitsu and Fujitsu Hokuriku Systems Limited worked with JAIST in building this system, and the companies will also partner with JAIST in the ongoing operational support for the on-campus private cloud.
On-Campus Private Cloud Configuration
PRIMERGY BX920 blade servers (51 blade servers)
ETERNUS DX80 storage systems (3 storage systems)
VMware vSphere™ 4 Enterprise server virtualization software
Citrix XenAp™ server-based computing system