Fujitsu Revamps Intranet System for Hokuriku Bank

Fujitsu today announced that it has developed an intranet system for the Hokuriku Bank, Ltd. that will serve as a platform for the bank's e-mail and message board systems. Hokuriku Bank recently began operations of the new system.

The new system consolidates the data from servers previously installed at Hokuriku Bank branches onto three ETERNUS storage systems located in the business system center of its headquarters. At the same time, Fujitsu has built a 1,500-machine virtual PC environment using the VMware View™ desktop virtualization software. This enables improved system operations and maintenance efficiency, enhanced security, and flexible system operations that are not affected by the installation of additional PC terminals⁽¹⁾ and other changes. The number of deployed servers has been consolidated from 212 to 54 in total, and by adopting Fujitsu's PRIMERGY BX620 blade server—a Super Green product—and other measures, the bank has reduced its CO2 emissions by 40%.

Background

Hokuriku Bank, a subsidiary of the Hokuhoku Financial Group, Inc., is the largest regional bank in the northwestern Hokuriku area of Japan and boasts the largest volume of deposits in the region. The Hokuhoku Financial Group has positioned its ICT strategy as a priority initiative for improving its managerial efficiency, and the bank is actively updating its infrastructure. As part of this initiative, the bank has upgraded to an ICT platform that contributes to its management and can be used for a variety of purposes. This includes information sharing via e-mail and message boards, enhancement of business efficiency through internal communications, and other human resources development activities such as e-learning.

Hokuriku Bank's previous intranet system, which was built ten years ago, streamlined the efficiency of bank system operations by employing a highly-secure environment that leveraged advanced technologies. This enabled Hokuriku Bank to store data on the file servers of each branch without having to save it directly on the PC terminals. In anticipation of the latest upgrade, Hokuriku Bank formulated the following new objectives to further enhance these existent features while addressing a number of challenges inherent to the previous system, including costs and time required to reconfigure the system when adding or migrating PC terminals:

1. Making it easy to perform data backups and restores, as well as significantly improving operational efficiency by performing unified data management at the business system center in lieu of storing data at bank branches.
2. Quickly resolving errors and reducing costs when adding or migrating PC terminals.
3. Exclusively using VMware View Client⁽²⁾ as software for PC terminals to prevent system operations from affecting the PC terminal environment.
4. Strengthening security for each system through centralized ID management, operations log collection, and other measures.

System Features

In order to fulfill Hokuriku Bank's aforementioned needs, Fujitsu consolidated the servers from the company's bank branches at its business system center and built a new, eco-friendly virtual PC-based system that employs desktop virtualization technology.

1. Centralized system center enables efficient system operations and maintenance

The new system consolidates the data from 212 servers, installed at the bank's 187 bank branches, onto three ETERNUS storage systems at the business system center. This eliminates waste resulting from the previously imbalanced utilization of server resources at each bank branch, thereby enabling server resources to be used effectively and enabling efficient system operations and maintenance.

2. Flexible system ensures superior security through a virtual PC-approach

By using VMware View to create an integrated virtual desktop on the server that incorporates PC operating systems, applications, and other operating environments, and by adopting a virtual PC-approach for building a 1,500-machine virtual PC environment, the new system delivers the following advantages:

• The new system allows the easy deployment of new PC terminals and migration of existing terminals, thereby reducing PC terminal deployment, operations and management costs.
• By deploying the PMaid ID Master⁽³⁾ unified ID management system, the system provides integrated ID management for virtual PC environments and business systems. In addition, when combined with Systemwalker Desktop Keeper middleware for managing virtual PC operations, the system provides enhanced security features, such as log collection and the detection of errors and suspicious operations.
• Until now, there has been an imbalance in the available storage capacity at each bank branch. With the new system, unified data management at the bank's business system center makes it possible to effectively utilize storage resources. Furthermore, the system is equipped with data restore capabilities, such as a snapshot-based data recovery function that allows end users to initiate data recoveries.
• From one of the 2,000 PC terminals installed at Hokuriku Bank's branches, users can take advantage of 1,500 virtual PCs running on the business system center's servers.

3. Contributes to eco-friendly management

Through server consolidation, the adoption of Fujitsu's PRIMERGY BX620 blade server—a Super-Green product—and other measures, Hokuriku Bank will be able to reduce its CO2 emissions by 40%.