Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2008-1 (VOL.59, NO.1)

Special Issue : IT Core Services

• Trends in Domestic IT Service Market and Related Fujitsu Activities

Though the domestic economy has enjoyed a moderate recovery, enterprises continue to face a difficult situation relative to intensifying global competition, prolonged product life cycles, and declining prices. In order to respond promptly to a changing environment and ensure steady growth, enterprises need IT to satisfy two roles: strengthening management infrastructure with "stable operation" and "reinforcing internal control." Moreover, enterprises need IT in support of business strategy that includes "creating new business" and "strengthening sales power." In order for IT to meet those requirements, enterprises are optimizing investments in IT both inside and outside the company. Against this background, there are growing needs for IT service among enterprises. In particular, there has been a significant increase in IT outsourcing, along with the development of such new services as SaaS (Software as a Service). This paper describes the trends in the IT service market and introduces related Fujitsu's activities.

• Approach to FENICS II

Fujitsu originally released FENICS in 1985 as network services made possible by the liberalization of communications. The recent trend toward uniting Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has extended communication and information to networks generally being used in daily life based on enhanced information technology skills and lower network costs. Uniform existing services, however, are unable to meet increasingly diverse customer needs. In response, Fujitsu introduced FENICS II based on a new concept of "Linking people to business" in succeeding the FENICS services of the past based on the concept of "Connecting bases to bases." As a result, FENICS II is structured on the achievement of services in order to meet the diverse demands of customers. This paper outlines the new services of FENICS II announced as a new approach of FENICS, and also discusses future developments.

• Fujitsu's Activities for SaaS

Software as a Service (SaaS) has recently attracted attention as being expected to provide services in a short period with limited IT hardware, software, and personnel resources, because SaaS utilizes existing services without the need for individual developments and dedicated resources. This marks a turning point for IT systems in terms of evaluating what the systems are to what business value they can create. Although SaaS is similar to an Application Service Provider (ASP) in that both utilize business applications over the Internet, SaaS differs from the ASP in offering greater flexibility and usability. This paper describes Fujitsu's activities for SaaS, introduces the related services to be provided, and discusses the trend and background of SaaS.

• Fujitsu's Digital Media Solutions

Fujitsu has a variety of unique technologies associated with the visual image business, such as video compression technology and digital rights management technology. Fujitsu also has a huge network infrastructure necessary for the delivery of video content over the Internet. Given its advanced technologies and extensive experience, Fujitsu provides various digital media solutions. This paper introduces three types of Fujitsu's services: "video content delivery service for Internet TV," "out of home media service," and "video monitoring and delivery service for enterprise customers." It also clarifies the requirements for digital media solutions and describes Fujitsu's capabilities for supporting customers who wish to expand their digital media business.

• Business Process Management By Evidence

Enterprises have been changing business processes in keeping abreast with a rapidly changing environment marked by mergers and acquisitions (M&A), technological evolution, and other changes. As a result, processes and information systems are becoming increasingly larger and more complex, making it difficult to understand the actual situation. We examined the data in information systems accumulated due to business operations and developed technology that visualizes the flow of operation by analyzing system data. This paper introduces the concept of that technology (BPM-E: Business Process Management by Evidence) and cites some examples of using the visualized flow of operation created by the technology to find business issues.

• Real-time System Behavior Visualization Technology for Managing Complex Distributed Application Systems

Enterprise IT systems continue becoming increasingly complex in terms of the number of components and variety of functions running on those components, and this increased complexity is reducing the visibility of IT system behavior that is crucial for efficient IT system management.
To recover such visibility, we are developing a unique new technology called "System Behavior Visualization" that monitors the target system's network traffic, reconfigures business transactions, and provides a comprehensive dashboard that displays key indicators of the target system's business transaction processing on real time basis. This paper outlines this new technology, describes the plan for commercialization, and discusses the future vision.

• Applying Toyota Production System to Process Improvement Activities for Outsourcing Services

This paper introduces a case study of Fujitsu's Outsourcing Business Unit that has successfully institutionalized the Toyota Production System (TPS) with the goal of facilitating the KAIZEN activities of office workers. One of Fujitsu's core outsourcing services is its IT outsourcing service. We intend to improve our business process in this field with the goal of providing higher service value and better quality of service to our customers, and have adopted TPS as our guiding methodology for this activity. Since TPS was originally developed for the manufacturing field, however, we had to adapt TPS to the field of outsourcing services. The keys to success in this endeavor are visualizing tacit service processes, applying standardized processes, and building on the accumulation of improvements by using a system called "KAIZENGEAR" co-developed with Toyota Motor Corporation.

• Platforms for Unifying Data Center Information

The scale and complexity of data centers have recently increased, entailing the need for service management tools to provide a higher quality of service. Tools such as Configuration Management Database (CMDB) are essential for prompt and quality IT operations, and must be coordinated to help support more rapid growth in innovating customer businesses. The IT industry has begun establishing a new standard for data integration among multiple CMDBs. IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) V3 introduces Configuration Management System (CMS) for constructing a layer of data integration across CMDBs. We developed this layer compliant with the new standard. We also designed the structure and uniform expressions of service management data. This allows the data to be utilized and integrated more easily among such tools as CMDB. We therefore improved the speed and quality of services delivered using these progressive technologies.

• Unified System Management Technology for Data Centres

Fujitsu's Unified System Management Technology (USMT) is a powerful, ubiquitous infrastructure that harnesses Web Service standards to provide unified capabilities for the management of components in all layers of the Data Centre – from application and software services, right through to the hardware fabric. USMT provides a single, unified management interface to an operator – either an automated management application or a human operator – through which a unified set of common management capabilities can be accessed and applied to Data Centre components. This paper outlines the business value proposition to both Fujitsu and Fujitsu's customers and describes how the USMT addresses that value proposition.

• Download Center–Core Infrastructure for Realizing Best Customer Satisfaction

Hard disk failure is the main reason for prolonged machine downtime. Recovering from hard disk failure entails such time-consuming procedures as reinstalling the system at the customer site. To address this serious issue, we have deployed "download sites" at nationwide spare parts centers, which are connected to the "Download Center." The Download Center provides "Install Master" for download sites equipped with the hard-disk writing function to create hard disk drives with the appropriate system installed on demand. This paper describes how our download center infrastructure both reduces recovery time and expands our recovery businesses to achieve greater customer satisfaction. It also discusses how our nationwide infrastructure leverages our new businesses.

• Achieving Stable Operation through Intensive Monitoring of System Failure

Fujitsu provides a maintenance service of "SupportDesk" to ensure stable operation and high-quality backup for customers. For customer systems configured from various open products, Fujitsu operates a support center called the "One-stop Solution Center" where, as the name implies, a field engineer is basically expected to immediately resolve all costomer system problems ranging from hardware and software issues through checking product quality. We have implemented what we call our PDCA ("Plan, Do, Check, Act") at the "SupportDesk" to ensure high quality improvements and the continuous monitoring of "Quality of Support" and "Quality of Product." In addition, we have a defined process called "Supervision for repeated incidents for each customer" in our quality management system to address multiple occurrences of the same problem. We have assigned a specific team of professional engineers to run with this process. This paper describes the method of supervision, activities, and results of this process.

• Operation and Maintenance for Customers IT System Infrastructure

Information Technology (IT) has become so deeply ingrained in corporate activities that new devices and models are now being released almost daily. At the same time, the layers of system framework have become increasingly diverse. Even those in charge of IT system infrastructure might find it difficult to take a macro view of the overall system due to a greater diversification of DB, OS, and functional units. Under such circumstances, Fujitsu reviews and standardizes processes ranging from proposals for IT system infrastructure to the design and actual construction, and thus can manage the design information of IT system infrastructure depending on operative prerequisites, as well as easily collect design information from existing operating machines. This makes it possible to compare and analyze the relevant information so that customers can safely and stably build and operate their own IT system infrastructure.

• Developing Human Resources to Promote Service-Minded Professionals

As our information technology society continues to evolve at an ever-increasing rate each year, a variety of services that employ IT including outsourcing have supported customer businesses. "Human resources" are essential for service business management. As an intangible product, a service only proves valuable once customers are satisfied with that service. The quality of a service depends on human resources that provide the service. Therefore, Fujitsu places highest priority on the "development of human resources," intending to "promote service-minded professionals." A human resource system has been constructed to develop service-minded professionals, and it allows us to systematically learn about service management. Moreover, it is essential that service managers be customer-oriented, service-minded and possess an abundance of human power. This is why we focus on ensuring that service managers have not only the technological expertise needed to provide services, but also possess the service mind needed for that purpose.