Company A

---

Centricstor provides fool-proof security and enhanced throughput and productivity

Introduction

Singapore is well known as a financial hub. This is evidenced by one of the world’s leading global financial services provider, known here as ‘COMPANY A’ (as disclosure of name is disallowed), which has made Singapore its centre of excellence in Asia as well as a strategic hub for its business functions, operations and technology expertise. The local Singapore office employs about 4000 staff and is home to state-of-the-art processing and computer centers, serving the needs of its branches in more than 50 countries.

About 15 years ago, COMPANY A embarked on a corporate wide initiative to regionalize and consolidate its IT processing facilities into three categories as listed below. The major drivers of the initiative are: audit, total cost of ownership and business continuity.

• Large regional data centers in the United States (New York), UK (London) and Singapore
• In-country data centers where the Data Secrecy Acts prohibit removal of financial data out of the country. Examples of countries with these acts enforced are Japan and Korea.
• In-country server centers comprising mostly Intel based servers for smaller countries and specialized applications.

The Requirements of COMPANY A (Singapore)

1. Data Replication
   COMPANY A has strong corporate governance on business continuity. All live applications on its disparate computing platforms must comply to IT disaster recovery requirements to ensure that business is restored within two hours after a declared disaster. Large volume of data must be continually replicated to a second site through high speed and large bandwidth fiber network.
2. Data Encryption
   In addition to the above data replication model, all the customer data must be copied onto tape media for offsite safe keeping. With the advent of the Data Secrecy Act and potential business exposure, COMPANY A has also decided to encrypt data residing on tape media meant for offsite storage.
3. High Performance Virtual Tape/Encryption System to Support Multiple Platforms
   The encryption initiative added another dimension of complexity to an environment where voluminous amount of data was backed up on a daily basis via a Virtual Tape Backup System. Performance is critical in processing huge amount of data coming from multiple platforms, namely, OS/390, Solaris, HP-UX, DEC, AS/400, AIX, Intel and Stratus. The existing STK Virtual Tape Solution supports System 390 but not other platforms. Hence, a high performance Virtual Tape/Encryption system capable of supporting multiple platforms was made a critical requirement.

Solutions from FUJITSU

Fujitsu in Singapore designed and implemented a high performance and robust fiber network to meet COMPANY A’s requirement for a data replication infrastructure. The solution comprising two pairs of Dense Wave Division Multiplexers (DWDM), fiber directors for Open Systems & Mainframes with Dynamic Integrated Fiber Management System as shown in the diagram below.

Fujitsu Centricstor/Decru Solution

The daily voluminous amount of data from hundreds of servers and numerous differing platforms proved to be a good environment for the Virtual Tape Backup System. With the system, data is copied onto large disk pools to be backed up onto tape media at a later stage, reducing the backup window compared to conventional disk to tape backup. However, to integrate the encryption function with the virtual tape backup system at a performance level that none could emulate, is no mean feat.

The Fujitsu team (together with Fujitsu Siemens Computer) designed a system solution by integrating Fujitsu’s state-of-the-art virtual tape appliance known as Centricstor, together with Decru Encryptors for COMPANY A. (Prior to this, StorageTek was the only vendor supplying mainframe based Virtual Tape System and tape libraries.)

Briefly, CentricStor is specially designed to support major system platforms, tape automation platforms and tape devices in heterogeneous environments. It offers platform-independent data protection and consolidation of all tape storage resources with seamless integration in mainframe and open-system environments.

Overcoming Challenges

The Fujitsu and Fujitsu Siemens Computer team worked hard to overcome key obstacles to win the deal against its major competitor, StorageTek. The major obstacles were:

1. The Fujitsu Solution is not part of the Standard Operating Environment as it is not approved by COMPANY A’s engineering team in their global headquarters. Together with COMPANY A’s management and technical team, Fujitsu had to ensure a complete success at all cost.
   
   The Centricstor/Decru combination is under going the process to qualify for SOE.
2. StorageTek marketed aggressively in their home ground in US against the Fujitsu solution. The Fujitsu relationship and track record was put to test but it gave confidence to the local team of COMPANY A of its complete support. From a StorageTek perspective, a Fujitsu victory meant that all current installed Virtual Tape are at risks as well as loss of tape libraries monopoly.
3. This was the first Centricstor/Decru combination in the world. The team worked around the clock to overcome integration as well as environmental issues.
4. The multiple platforms requirements complicated the solution exponentially. The Proof-of-Concept stretched for two months over long hours.
5. The business pressure dictated that the Encryption must be in production by end February 2005 which means the equipment for proof- of-concept had to be delivered just before Christmas.
6. The team had to work with StorageTek as part of the integration project to reuse some StorageTek Tape libraries.

Customer Satisfaction

Following the deployment of the Fujitsu solutions at Company A, the latter enjoys peace of mind that comes with fool-proof security and enhanced throughput and productivity due to significantly improved system performance, reduced system timeouts on tape backup jobs. It is assured of a long-term return on investment with the deployment of the most advanced technologies such as the elegant Centricstor. COMPANY A has seen decided to purchase and implements five additional Centricstor boxes with of 45 terabytes for its centers in Singapore, Korea and London. The sale of the complete solution was valued at about USD5M.

Conclusion

Fujitsu Asia has the solution, experience and expertise to not only integrate systems and networks from different platforms but also provide secured, reliable and efficient storage management as the successful implementation at Company A testifies. With a well-organized global support network, Fujitsu Asia has access to various resources within the 150,000 strong Fujitsu group making it fully confident in delivering complete solutions and add real value to its customers’ businesses.