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Fujitsu Middleware: Supporting Reliability in ICT Systems


FSTJ 2007-7 Cover Image

2007-7 (Vol.43, No.3)


Fujitsu middleware that constitutes a core component of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems is the key to achieving high reliability through TRIOLE solutions. In this special issue, we describe how Fujitsu has been developing TRIOLE, with the focus on enhancing the reliability of the Interstage, Systemwalker, and Symfoware middleware products that play a major role in maintaining the reliability of TRIOLE solutions.



2007-7 (Vol.43, No.3) Contents

1. Preface (460 KB)
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) systems are intimately connected with mission-critical services, not only those that support corporate activities but also those that support people's lifestyles and social infrastructures. The middleware that constitutes a core component of ICT systems is the key to achieving high reliability through TRIOLE solutions. In developing middleware, we have put the knowledge we have gained during the mainframe era and onwards to good use and focused on the needs of the open era. ---[Akira Yamanaka, Corporate Vice President, President, Software Business Unit]

TRIOLE

2. TRIOLE: IT Industrialization Is Here and It Works (396 KB)
To expand their business, customers need information technology (IT) that offers agility, continuity, and efficiency. Unfortunately, IT has until now been unable to simultaneously offer all three. A legacy system that has been operated for more than 10 years may be highly stable but is very expensive to modify. Open systems, on the other hand, are easy to modify and easy to use with the latest technologies. However, it is difficult to develop and operate a stable open system because customers can choose various hardware equipment, OSs, middleware products, and application packages in an open environment. The Japanese manufacturing industry today relies on industrialized processes that make it possible to manufacture products efficiently and reliably while at the same time achieve the continuous improvements that help to distinguish Japanese products from others in the global marketplace. With TRIOLE, to provide consistently standardized functions and performance, Fujitsu has applied this sort of industrialization process to IT. This paper describes how TRIOLE achieves efficient, reliable, and secure construction and operation of IT infrastructures and business applications. ---[Ryuichi Tanaka]
3. Platform Integration with TRIOLE Template (867 KB)
Best-of-breed systems have gained the spotlight in the open-based IT field but are burdened with high maintenance costs. Substantial labor and fees need to be reserved in order to maintain system consistency while combining open-based products. As a solution, Fujitsu presents TRIOLE Template, a verified IT platform build template, as the foundation for designing and operating a stable system within a reasonable cost. TRIOLE Template adopts various open Fujitsu and non-Fujitsu products and expands the selection lineup to meet with technological improvements and customers' changing needs. Previous TRIOLE Template application cases have shown a 20 to 50% reduction in system design/build work while maintaining stable IT infrastructure quality during operation. This paper introduces TRIOLE Template, a tool for constructing robust and stable IT infrastructure systems. ---[Akio Watanabe, Kiyoshi Miyazaki]
4. Using TRIOLE to Enable Delivery of Large-Scale Industrialized IT Services (539 KB)
Development and production methodologies in Japan have long been the envy of the rest of the industrialized world. With TRIOLE, Fujitsu Ltd. harnessed the essence of these practices to create a world-class process for the industrialization of product-based IT solutions within their regional markets. In 2003 a joint UK and Japanese team was formed to bring the effectiveness of TRIOLE to bear in the radically different and services-dominated UK IT environment. The goals were to understand if such an obviously effective set of principles could provide insights that would improve customers' long-term service experiences in the UK, demonstrate close and effective collaboration between the UK and Japan, and explore how the organizational and cultural environment might be impacted if it were to support the emergence of a re-engineered service-delivery mindset. This paper tells the story. ---[Marc Silvester, Paul Higgs]

Middleware: Interstage

5. Interstage: Fujitsu's Application Platform Suite (738 KB)
Flexibility, transparency, and continuity are important features for current enterprise IT systems. Interstage, Fujitsu's application platform suite, provides these features by supporting Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and ensuring high operability with open standards and high compatibility between its different versions. In this paper, we discuss the roles and benefits of Interstage in these aspects using case examples. ---[Takeshi Kosuge, Tomonori Ishikawa]
6. Problem Detection and Automatic Recovery of Business Applications (349 KB)
High reliability is important for mission-critical systems, and to achieve it, advanced prevention and rapid recovery from latent problems are necessary. Fujitsu's Interstage Application Server meets these needs by providing functions that detect signs of problems and recover applications automatically. This paper describes how Interstage Application Server can be used to provide high availability for business applications. ---[Toshihiro Mimura]
7. Features for Continuous Business Services throughout Application Lifecycles (610 KB)
One way to achieve a high-reliability, high-performance system is to implement non-stop operation. This is very important because business chances are lost during system downtime. Until now, maintenance and enhancements of business applications could only be done by stopping an entire system, so these activities are obstacles to non-stop operation. Therefore, a key problem for non-stop system implementation is how business applications can be upgraded without stopping an entire system. This paper describes a dynamic application replacement technology for overcoming this problem. ---[Shinya Echigo]

Middleware: Symfoware

8. Disaster Recovery Feature of Symfoware DBMS (703 KB)
The demands for stable operation of corporate information systems continue to grow, and in recent years there has been an urgent demand for protections against natural disasters, terrorism, and other destabilizing events. To meet these demands, Fujitsu offers its Symfoware Disaster Recovery system, which is based on the Symfoware high-reliability database management system (DBMS) and incorporates Fujitsu's expertise in mainframes, new hardware, and other core technology areas. When a disaster occurs at a customer's main center, this system switches operation to a previously prepared remote standby center. By using this system, customers can protect their data and quickly resume business operations when a disaster occurs. This paper describes Symfoware Disaster Recovery. ---[Teruyuki Goto]

Middleware: Systemwalker

9. Systemwalker: Supporting Stable and Reliable IT Operation (651 KB)
This paper describes an outline of the basic concept and important characteristics of Systemwalker under the following headings:
- History and initiatives of Systemwalker as IT operation management software
- Policy-based Systems Management (PSM) architecture
- IT service management
- Systemwalker product lineup
This paper also briefly explains the next-generation architecture based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) that we are now planning to implement. ---[Toshiyuki Suzuki]
10. Provisioning Technology for Automation (406 KB)
Vendors have recently been offering more products and solutions for IT system "automation" management. Fujitsu's "Systemwalker Resource Coordinator" is a product that provides an infrastructure for automation to reduce the administrative costs of a complex, large-scale IT system. Although the term "automation" is often used to discuss system management, how this technology can be applied to actual systems and what benefits it will provide are not fully understood. Automation entails certain aspects such as monitoring, correcting, and acting. Systemwalker Resource Coordinator provides provisioning technology for self-acting. This paper outlines the provisioning technology of Systemwalker Resource Coordinator and cites several case studies in describing how Systemwalker Resource Coordinator resolves many common issues facing system administrators. ---[Mamoru Yokoyama, Hiroshi Yazawa]
11. Maintaining Quality of Service Based on ITIL-Based IT Service Management (836 KB)
Interest in the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) of system management best practices has increased in recent years, and corporations are starting to incorporate ITIL in their IT systems. To help with this incorporation, Fujitsu provides the Systemwalker product group, which supports ITIL-based IT service management. ITIL contains many kinds of management processes. In this paper, we focus on the service delivery area, which includes capacity, availability, and service level managements, and discuss the functions provided by Systemwalker Service Quality Coordinator (SSQC) and Systemwalker Availability View (SAView) from the ITIL perspective. An overview of the architecture used to implement these functions is also included. ---[Koji Ishibashi]
12. Achieving Integrated IT Service Management (721 KB)
Increasingly, IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) practices are being adopted to improve the quality of IT services and reduce operating costs. Fujitsu provides the Systemwalker products that support IT service management according to ITIL best practices. This paper discusses the Systemwalker solutions that implement ITIL-based integrated IT service management, with an emphasis on ITIL service support. ---[Akihiko Sakurai]

System Security by Middleware

13. Security Solutions Provided by Fujitsu's Middleware Products (845 KB)
In recent years, companies have increasingly been asked to take more social responsibility. From the standpoint of business continuity and complying with regulations, it has become more important to establish information security governance. This paper describes the solutions provided by the TRIOLE middleware products that conform to the Fujitsu enterprise security architecture (ESA) and efficiently improve system information security governance. Japanese companies will be obliged to comply with the Japan's new Financial Instruments and Exchange Law, which includes the Japanese equivalent of the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act, starting in 2008. The ESA-conforming TRIOLE middleware products will facilitate building of a secure system in compliance with laws and regulations, including the Japanese Sarbanes-Oxley act. ---[Takahisa Hatakeyama, Tatsuji Shimoe, Yoshie Yamanaka, Hideyuki Kageyama]

Quality Assurance of Middleware

14. Attaining Higher Quality by Frontloading Approach (691 KB)
From the time of the mainframe era, Fujitsu has been supporting many mission-critical information systems in Japan by providing high-quality software. This tradition is also alive on today's open platforms; however, Fujitsu has had to overcome new constrains that have been introduced by the open platforms. This paper first describes Fujitsu's approach to developing high-quality middleware, which is characterized by integration of various efforts into a quality system. It then describes the frontloading approach, which aims at managing the constrains by assuring quality from the upstream development stages. In this paper, the term "frontloading" is used to indicate the efforts to assure high quality by acting on the early development stages. ---[Toru Shiraiwa, Kimio Saito, Keita Uchiyama]