World’s largest indoor Theme Park runs on Fujitsu servers

Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 520, mission critical IA servers, based on Dual-Core Intel® Itanium® processors, underpin the key Database Systems.

System Introduction Background

Opened in 1989 Lotte World was the first theme park in South Korea. Today it has grown to be the largest indoor theme park in the world, as registered by The Guinness Book of Records in 1995.

Alongside Disney parks in the US and Japan, it is also one of the world's favorites. By June 1999, Lotte World had attracted more than 50 million visitors, and by January 2005, this had grown to over 90 million. Also in 2005, Forbes Magazine ranked Lotte World as one of the World's Top 10 Theme Parks.

Much more than an amusement park, Lotte World also includes a department store, hotel, duty-free shops, superstores and a sports center, making it a living resort. A city within a city, where visitors can enjoy fun and adventure, be well looked after, and undertake many leisure activities, including shopping, culture, ice skating, swimming and bowling, all in one place.

System Requirements

Lotte World’s requirements included the provision of an uninterrupted service environment; 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. However, as workloads in the front-office ticketing, food, product sales, sports, etc., and back-office finance, personnel, wages, purchases, etc., had continued to grow, the existing system had became insufficient to handle all the work. Performance had slowed and problems were increasing during heavy workload periods. With the existing server being 4 years old, acquisition of a new server was seen as imperative. Further it was very important that the new system was compatible with the previous Windows system as well as providing greater stability and expandability. After extensive in-depth review, their decision was made based on the outstanding performance, stability, expandability and compatibility, of Fujitsu mission critical PRIMEQUEST 520 IA servers using Dual-Core Intel® Itanium® processors. Lotte World also judged the server to have greater management co nvenience both for future maintenance and repair. Mr. Jae-Han Yoo, Director of the Lotte World IS Team commented, "Nowadays, the functions and performance of servers from different vendors are relatively similar. So the important point is how fast the vendor can provide resolution when errors occur."

In this, he said he was satisfied with the prompt technical service and clear communication with the IS team provided by Fujitsu during times of operational problems.

System Introduction

The two Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 520 models introduced by Lotte World are used as database (DB) servers. Organized as a cluster, the server operating system is located on external storage rather than on internal system disks. This is more resilient and enables immediate respond to errors.

Director Yoo emphasized the value of this structure. "In short, the Lotte World system now has a triple layer of protection. Since all important data is located on the external storage system, and the servers are duplicated, there are no problems when errors occur on the server." The result of this platform configuration means Lotte World can enjoy a high availability environment, where service is provided 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In line with the introduction of the new Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST based DB server, Lotte World also changed its storage system, previously provided by another vendor, to a Fujitsu ETERNUS4000 storage system.

System Benefits

As an example of improved performance, the time required to produce daily reports on closing accounts has been reduced from the previous three minutes to just twenty seconds. Smooth system operation coupled with improved per formance has also resulted in greater system stability and responsiveness.

As a result of establishing its new DB server on Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST, Lotte World is enjoying benefits such as high processing speeds and outstanding stability. Showing great satisfaction with the new system, Director Yoo commented, "Whenever I come to work, I have to write daily reports on closing accounts. Before, it took about three minutes to write each report. Now, with the new DB server, it takes only about twenty seconds." He also went on to say, "After beginning operation in January 2007, the new DB server hasn’t had a single error up to now [September]. I am amazed with its great stability."

Lotte World is planning to make full use of Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST as the server for the scheduled next new system developments.

Interview

Fujitsu proved itself of being highly trustworthy by providing swift service

Q. Lotte World is mostly using Fujitsu servers. Is there any special reason for this?

A. Actually, in terms of performance, there isn't much difference between the different hardware vendors. The important point is how fast the vendor provides a resolution when problems occur. Fujitsu has proved itself to be highly trustworthy by its provision of swift service.

Q. What are Lotte World’s future IT plans?

A. Some of our future plans include stabilizing the entrance management system which was introduced in 2006.
Establishing a 24 hours a day, 365 days a year uninterrupted service environment, for our internet reservation system, which is currently under development. Plus, the construction and development of an integrated portal. Of these, the integrated portal will be an upgrade from the previous 1.0 version to a 3.0 version based on a package developed independently by Lotte Information and Communications.
Lotte World is also reviewing development o f a new personnel system covering recruitment, promotion, merit evaluation, assess ment and compensation.