Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2011-5 (VOL. 62, NO. 3)

Special Issue: Cloud Computing

• Fujitsu's Approach to Cloud Computing

Cloud computing (hereafter "cloud") has come to be specifically used in various fields. Private clouds are used in enterprises. Groups and individuals use public clouds. Clouds are also used by new businesses and for innovation. The cloud that Fujitsu is focusing on is one that serves as ICT infrastructure and that creates value when used to build new businesses and services with customers. Fujitsu is developing technology, products, and solutions for this cloud as a comprehensive service. Fujitsu is aiming to help build an environmentally friendly and social intelligent society by having this cloud used widely and safely in the social infrastructure field, where ICT has yet to advance. This paper introduces the areas of application of such cloud, the strong points of Fujitsu's cloud, the use of cloud in society's infrastructure and the future direction to take in developing clouds.

• Using Food and Agriculture Cloud to Improve Value of Food Chain

The agriculture and food industries (agriculture, fishery, related manufacturing and distribution industries and restaurants) of Japan are integrated through the food chain and form a large market worth 99.2 trillion yen in terms of domestic production. In a demonstration experiment where agricultural production is assisted by means of ICT systems, which Fujitsu has been conducting since 2008, it has been found that agriculture has a close relation to its related industries, and when assisting agriculture it is necessary to consider the impact on the entire food chain. Of the challenges relevant to the entire food chain including agriculture, this paper discusses the stable supply of agricultural produce, stability of agricultural management, and improvement of food chain efficiency. It goes on to present ways of solving these challenges with cloud computing. The possibility that agricultural producers and stakeholders in the food chain will benefit from this food and agriculture cloud, which is intended to make contributions to all agriculture and food industries, is also described.

• Cloud Computing for Animal Medical Care

One ideal way of enjoying the benefits of cloud computing would be to build a social infrastructure of knowledge by storing knowledge in a cloud itself and offering it as a service in the same way as electricity and tap water. As one approach to building such social infrastructure, Fujitsu is working on applying cloud computing to the field of medical care for animals (companion animals). However there are problems in this field. For example, information about medical treatment is not recorded in a manner that allows it to be easily shared and there are no established systems for extracting information to deliver it to the persons concerned. The authors conducted a demonstration experiment on a solution to these problems by means of utilizing data on a public cloud capable of centrally storing information and allowing it to be shared and utilized as required. Through this experiment, the authors showed how a cloud as social infrastructure can make social contributions and demonstrated an information-sharing model made possible only by a cloud serving as social infrastructure. This paper presents Fujitsu's activities to achieve these goals and related discussions.

• MediaCloud Service with Optimized Video Processing and Platform

Recently, video traffic on the Internet has been increasing dramatically as video services including video sharing sites (YouTube, Netflix etc.), Internet broadcasting and video on demand services become popular. In addition, the rapid diffusion of smartphones and tablet PCs and the fusion of broadcasting and the Internet as in Google TV and Apple TV are expected to increasingly accelerate consumers' use of video content. Under the circumstances, there has been an increasing need among enterprises for work styles that make use of video. Fujitsu has rich experience and know-how in fields such as IP codecs, which are used by 80% of broadcasting stations in Japan and the three major North American broadcasting stations (ABC, CBS and NBC), IP networking, and ICT systems. We intend to support customers' businesses by taking advantage of these technologies we have cultivated. This paper describes MediaCloud services, which offer media processing centered on trusted cloud services in a platform as a service (PaaS) environment.

• Practice of M2M That Connects Real-World Things with Cloud Computing

Machine to Machine (M2M) means connecting many machines with a management center via wide-area cellular or satellite networks in order to monitor and control them. M2M has been used in various fields before. However, M2M is now facing a dramatic revolution. This is because we can more easily gather and analyze many pieces of information using recent improvements in telecommunication techniques and services and the appearance of cloud computing. Connecting real-world machines with the cloud and gathering much information will produce many new business opportunities through not only improving products and customer services, but also through selling that information. On the other hand, the requirements that M2M infrastructure needs to meet have also been changing with the appearance of the cloud. In this paper, I will explain these new requirements and problems, introduce the solutions proposed by Fujitsu, and give some examples.

• Engineering Cloud: Flexible Integrated Development Environment

Nowadays product development must be done speedily and in a way that can respond to changing business environments. Fujitsu has created a development environment that uses technical computing and is known as Flexible Technical Computing Platform (FTCP), on a cloud. Fujitsu is providing it as Engineering Cloud to its customers and Product Development Department. Based on an example of applying Engineering Cloud to mobile phones, this paper describes the characteristics of FTCP, an overview of Fujitsu's Engineering Cloud service and its merits, and technology for promptly displaying the results of large-scale simulations, which is important technology for achieving Engineering Cloud. Based on Fujitsu's know-how that it has accumulated during its in-house operation of Engineering Cloud, it has become possible to link the created FTCP and customers' existing development environments. This in turn raises hopes for a shortened product development time and higher product quality.

• Approach to Services Making Use of PHRs

As society has been aging and average life expectancy increasing in recent years, everybody wishes to live healthily and for a long time. Meanwhile, the rate at which people consult their doctors about lifestyle-related diseases rises significantly when they reach their 40s. This, together with contributions to the medical system for the elderly, takes up a large portion of the medical care expenses of the entire nation. To address this problem, preventive medicine that makes use of personal health records (PHRs) containing personal health information is attracting attention. However, PHRs are scattered in various places: diagnostic information is kept at medical institutions, medical examination information at medical examination institutions or insurers (corporate health insurance associations, etc.), exercise information at fitness clubs and information such as weight at home. Accordingly, it is important to make these different types of information available at anytime, anywhere and on any terminal, and there are hopes that this will be possible with PHR services in a cloud environment. Fujitsu has built a health information platform that makes use of PHRs on the Fujitsu cloud and been working on a demonstration project targeting employees. This paper outlines the project and describes Fujitsu's approach to services that use PHRs.

• Platform for Location-Based Services

Fujitsu is creating new values and services by gathering massive amounts of data generated in actual societies, and analyzing it with ICT technology. We have constructed a service platform on a cloud computing environment. It solves a wide range of location-based problems, as typified by traffic jams, by using positional information collected through the Global Positioning System (GPS). As the first version, we have started providing services of a function to generate floating car data based traffic information, a function to conduct Point Of Interest (POI) searches and an optimum path finding function. We will provide following services which include a function to utilize massive quantities of collected data controlled by the platform for location-based services. It can be used in various ways. For example, it can be used as an application component, as an application platform utilization service, and as an application platform accessed from systems constructed for users inside the platform for location-based services. In the years ahead, we plan to expand its features, services and functions, and create some additional value by diversifying its data collection fields.

• Infrastructure Technology for Cloud Services

Application of a new ICT model called cloud computing is now moving into the full-scale deployment phase in fields including infrastructure for new businesses, primary industry, medical services and nursing care. To expand these cloud computing environments, Fujitsu has been striving to achieve both excellent convenience and reliability that allows these environments to be used at a high level. Specifically, Fujitsu has reviewed cloud infrastructure technology for data centers from the architectural level and worked on design and development. The results of Fujitsu's activities have been made into a full-scale public service called On-demand Virtual System Service, and this has been offered as a commercial service since October 2010. In addition, this "Made in Fujitsu" infrastructure technology has been deployed to hub data centers in five countries around the world to offer global cloud services. This paper presents Fujitsu's cloud infrastructure technology and the global expansion of its services.

• FGCP/A5: PaaS Service Using Windows Azure Platform

Fujitsu is preparing to offer a new Platform as a Service (PaaS) service using a Windows Azure Platform Appliance license from Microsoft. Fujitsu is going to start offering this service with the same level of functionality as Microsoft's public cloud service of Windows Azure. In addition, Fujitsu will link this service to its existing cloud services and middleware products. Fujitsu will actively listen to the opinions of its customers, enhance its unique and highly value-added services, and shape its cloud services for tomorrow. Based on a strategic partnership with Microsoft announced in July 2010, Fujitsu is preparing to offer its FUJITSU Global Cloud Platform "FGCP/A5" Powered by Windows Azure. This paper introduces the positioning of FGCP/A5, its service menu, and examples of its initial application.

• Middleware to Support Private Clouds

Cloud computing is attracting attention because it allows systems to be constructed speedily in response to rapidly changing business environments and helps reduce expanding ICT costs. There are two forms of cloud computing. One is a public cloud, where service providers provide their cloud services to a number of customers. The other is a private cloud, where a company's information system department provides company-specific cloud services to all sections of that company and its group companies. These two forms have a symbiotic relationship, and users can choose between them according to their requirements for governance, security, reliability, and networks. Fujitsu is meeting various needs of customers by offering middleware products to construct a private cloud system in addition to providing public cloud services. In this paper, we introduce an outline of our middleware products that can reduce ICT costs and allow speedy construction of systems in a private cloud environment.

• Fujitsu's Approach to Information Security with Cloud Services

Cloud computing opens up a variety of possibilities but at the same time it raises new concerns regarding information security. In order to safely enjoy the benefits of cloud computing, it is necessary to consider both general measures for information security that have conventionally been employed and information security measures tailored to cloud computing. With Fujitsu's cloud services, to address these concerns and let people use cloud computing with peace of mind, we are implementing various measures such as establishing information security controls within the Fujitsu Group and introducing advanced information security technologies. This paper describes Fujitsu's security governance, compliance, and efforts for and basic principles of its information security controls over cloud services.

• Further Penetration of and Plan for Contribution to INTARFRM

There have been changes to the business form of cloud computing, which has appeared recently against the background of uncertain social conditions. In addition to this, the consumer field of applications themselves is becoming popular accompanying the rapid spread of portable devices such as smartphones. Based on such a historical background, this paper introduces a plan to contribute to future consumer fields centering on INTARFRM, which is being developed with medium-sized or larger corporate users in mind. This plan targets users of applications who are young people that enjoy developing software. It aims to propose multiple services by combining a customized INTARFRM that suits these users' needs with a cloud development center using the Internet that will probably form the core of future work styles. In addition, the plan aims to add forms of service that are tailored to the targets and that were not present in the business practices of the traditional SI field. In this way, it will be possible to propose new business models that offer merits to users and also differentiate the providers of such models and services.

• Network Technology Supporting Intelligent Society: WisReed

Fujitsu intends to achieve an Intelligent Society, which is one that makes use of cloud computing, to provide solutions to social issues such as energy-saving measures to counter global warming and improved safety against disasters. To that end, it is necessary to densely deploy different types of sensors to provide data on areas such as energy usage, river levels, and deterioration of structures in an accurate and timely manner, so that that data can be aggregated in a cloud. One problem with this is the cost of constructing and operating infrastructure for networking sensors, which are expected to be provided in enormous numbers, and this has hindered the implementation of the sensor network. Accordingly, Fujitsu has developed "WisReed," technology for autonomously forming a network to facilitate the collection of sensing data. This paper describes the background of WisReed's development and its technological features, and presents a case example of its adoption for smart metering and fields of its application, which are expected to expand.

• Convergence Service Platform

The environment of ICT business has been changing during the past few years in an increasingly complex and borderless society. Fujitsu has developed an ICT platform which collects and analyzes large amounts of sensing data from people and devices on the trusted cloud. In order to deliver an ICT environment for real-time processing of massive amounts of data in a timely manner, we intend to cooperate with business partners rather than attempting to achieve it by ourselves. From a technological aspect, we aim to achieve high-speed processing by using new technologies such as parallel distributed processing with complex event processing (CEP) or Hadoop.

• Changes to Ubiquitous Devices Brought by Cloud Computing

In general, the more that cloud computing is used, the less computing power that client devices need to have. This leads to an increased degree of freedom in design, generating expectations for the advent of ubiquitous devices that are optimized to suit the particular way they are used. Tablet PCs are one example of such devices and various types have been released in recent years, bringing about ways to use them that are unthinkable with conventional personal computers. Fujitsu is also planning to release new ubiquitous devices, and with them it intends to make contributions to a human-centric society, including providing added value. This is made possible by new technology that takes advantage of cloud computing.