導入事例 | パナソニックインフォメーションシステムズ

Case study
Panasonic Information Systems
uses converged storage to
support cloud services
HP 3PAR utility storage makes a reliable,
flexible contribution to Nextructure solution
Industry
IT
Objective
Integrate disparate systems into a converged
infrastructure in order to reduce operational load
and meet business needs
Approach
Investigated server and storage systems that could
maintain server quality equal to that of a mainframe
IT matters
•Uses virtual storage pools for rapid
implementation and expansion
•Assigns storage volumes to servers in a matter
of minutes
•Increases the speed of implementation and
reduction in operational load
•Delivers the high reliability needed for
mission-critical operations
•Achieves high utilization rates of physical volumes
Business matters
•Responds to business demands with efficient
resource provision
•Establishes new outside business with
know-how gained from in-house operations
•Support business expansion into cloud
service market
“Storage utilization rates normally tend to be around
40 to 50 percent, but our in-house HP 3PAR production
environment produces a rate of 91 percent.”
– Keisuke Tanaka, Executive Officer, Technology & Development, Panasonic Information Systems
Responding to business demands
Panasonic Information Systems, the systems division of
Japan’s giant Panasonic group, was challenged with building
an IT infrastructure capable of meeting increasing business
demands. HP 3PAR Utility Storage formed an important part
of the backbone systems that not only provide on-demand
response to business demands but also support the company’s
new Nextructure cloud services.
Case study | Panasonic Information Systems Co., Ltd.
Challenge
Cloud services to meet user needs
Panasonic Information Systems (Panasonic IS),
the systems division of Panasonic, offered
a next generation IT infrastructure solution
known as Nextructure.
Hisashi Kurono
Managing Director
Member of the Board of Directors
Operations/CIO/Human Resources
Unit Manager, Service Business Unit
Panasonic Information Systems Co., Ltd.
Keisuke Tanaka
Executive Officer
Technology & Development/New Business
Panasonic Information Systems Co., Ltd.
“As the systems division at Panasonic,
we were involved with development and
operations focusing primarily on backbone
systems, and then we became independent,”
says Hisashi Kurono, Managing Director and
CIO at Panasonic IS. “We had gained a lot
of experience facing the whirlwind of rapid
advancement seen with open architecture
right before and after our establishment.
Nextructure is a systemized IT infrastructure
solution made possible by the cultivation of
know-how spanning over 50 years. It brings
together construction and operating processes
based on practical experience, technology
that has been proven in the field, and products
selected with the user in mind. We took
advantage of our construction and operating
know-how to implement virtual storage and
server systems across the board for our
cloud-based service infrastructure here at
Panasonic IS.”
Technology that virtualizes CPU, memory,
and storage resources has finally become
widespread in recent years, even among
open systems. However, it was in 2004 that
Panasonic IS implemented virtualization
within the Panasonic backbone system,
while consideration of the move actually
began in 2002.
Akira Sakaguchi
Group Manager
IDC Services Division
Service Business Unit
Panasonic Information Systems Co., Ltd.
Tatsuya Yasui
IDC Services Division
Service Business Unit
Panasonic Information Systems Co., Ltd.
2
When Panasonic decided to implement
virtualization within its backbone system,
this was driven in particular by the quick
advancement of open architecture, which
brought about a complication of systems and
the so-called silo effect.
Executive officer Keisuke Tanaka recalls the
situation at that time: “At the initiative of the
application development team, individual
systems were being implemented one after
another resulting in a rapid increase in the load
on systems operations. We had to approach
operations using separate methods for each
respective system. The increase in operational
costs became an issue, and we also faced
various system troubles. It was at this point
that we began working on a drastic redesign
aiming to increase the operational quality of
open systems and reduce costs.”
Panasonic IS decided upon the strategy of
separating the application from the execution
infrastructure, allowing integration of systems
operations at the infrastructure level, rather
than approaching them at the application level
as was done previously.
“When deciding upon server and storage
systems, our focus was really on how we
could reduce operational load, which had been
nearing its limits, while still maintaining service
quality on a par with that of a mainframe,”
explains Tanaka.
Solution
Backup supported by 3PAR
Panasonic IS chose to address backup as
its first step toward convergence. Akira
Sakaguchi, Group Manager at the IDC Services
Division, Service Business Unit, reflects back
on the decision: “We decided to move to an
automatic online backup appliance product
to reduce the heavy loads from dealing with
backups. In order to do this effectively, it was
necessary to address convergence of the
storage being backed up.”
Panasonic IS decided upon a unique policy
for building and selecting devices for a
storage infrastructure that would allow
integrated maintenance of data for multiple
business systems.
“We had three requirements: it should
be simple, it should allow for maximum
automation of operations and it should be
possible to monitor operational status at
all times. With HP 3PAR storage, all storage
resources are treated as a single pool of
resources. Operations like the optimization
of data distribution are autonomous and
integrated monitoring tools are available.
It fit our policy requirements perfectly,”
Sakaguchi explains.
“Also, we saw the expansion of our storage
capacity as inevitable, and with 3PAR
this is possible. At the time, the speed at
which systems were being introduced was
accelerating and implementing storage
solutions on an application-level basis left us
lagging. With 3PAR, multiple servers can be
connected to a virtual storage pool, and the
storage capacity of that virtual storage pool
can be expanded online. It was clear to us that
the 3PAR concept was radically different from
sizing-based storage products.”
Case study | Panasonic Information Systems Co., Ltd.
This speed and scalability changed the IT
infrastructure at Panasonic IS. Since then,
the number of servers at Panasonic IS has
increased dramatically, with over 260 physical
servers connected to its 3PAR system.
By combining these features with the 3PAR
Utility Storage solution, Panasonic IS was able
to further the evolution of its IT infrastructure,
resulting in a more flexible and reliable
foundation for business.
Good performance and reliability
When Panasonic IS had successfully built a
converged storage infrastructure based on
3PAR, the next step was the convergence
of servers.
“This converged infrastructure continues to
support our business, providing flexible and
rapid response to a variety of unpredictable
needs,” continues Tanaka.
Tanaka recalls: “We began to see more of
the movement of critical operations from
mainframes to open architecture servers.
The order management system at Panasonic,
which was a new company at the time,
is a typical example of this move.”
At the time, it was standard for open
architecture mission critical systems to use
Active/Standby high-availability clustering.
However, Panasonic IS considered this method
to be difficult to build and maintain.
“That’s why we chose blade servers – the
N+1 failover function would allow us to keep
standby units at a minimum. This allowed us to
take advantage of the 3PAR converged storage
infrastructure and continue to move forward
with the convergence of our mission critical
systems,” explains Tanaka.
Sakaguchi adds: “We were impressed with
the 3PAR architecture and the availability
it offered, being fully active with redundant
disks, controllers, and network ports. It’s
possible to address problems before they
actually affect the operation of the system,
which means that uninterrupted operation –
24 hours a day, 365 days a year – is possible.
“Could these advanced automation features
result in extra overhead? Even if things look
great when we introduce the system, will
performance begin to suffer over time?
These issues worried us, but they proved to be
groundless. HP 3PAR automatically optimizes
data distribution across all disks so that the
I/O load – a performance bottleneck –
is distributed well, despite the amount of
data or number of servers.”
3
Case study | Panasonic Information Systems Co., Ltd.
Benefits
Customer solution
at a glance
Next generation solution
Panasonic IS sells its converged system
infrastructure through in-house operations.
It has introduced Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS) cloud services, and offers Nextructure
as a total solution. All of these services make
use of the converged storage infrastructure,
and HP 3PAR Utility Storage.
Hardware
•HP 3PAR Utility Storage
“We’d built a cloud-based system using 3PAR
before most people had even heard of the
cloud,” says Kurono. “As a result, there is
no shortage of customers that come to us
looking to reap the benefits of our expertise.
Our experience should prove especially
valuable to anyone making the move from
high-end mainframes or UNIX® systems.”
“The N+1 failover function
would allow us to keep
standby units at a minimum.
This allowed us to take
advantage of the 3PAR
converged storage
infrastructure and continue
to move forward with the
convergence of our mission
critical systems.”
– Keisuke Tanaka, Executive Officer, Technology &
Development, Panasonic Information Systems
Tatsuya Yasui, a member of the IDC Services
Division, Service Business Unit, shares his
thoughts on 3PAR Utility Storage from the
viewpoint of a cloud services provider:
“In most cases, our customers are using
our cloud infrastructure to build backbone
systems, which means that stable operation
and high availability are of utmost importance.
“In our mission critical service category,
we’ve maintained 100 percent availability
since we first began offering the service,
demonstrating the high reliability of a 3PAR-based
storage infrastructure. This is backed up by the
performance of our own in-house system.”
Tanaka points out two important factors
when considering investment effectiveness:
“Generally, they say that storage utilization
rates tend to be around 40 to 50 percent, but
our in-house 3PAR production environment
sees a rate of around 91 percent. By increasing
the utilization rate in our cloud systems as
well, we are able keep investments in the
system at a necessary minimum. It also
directly contributes to reductions in both
space needed and electricity consumption.
“You can’t reduce TCO through server
virtualization alone. Improving operations is
more important than reducing hardware costs.
The goal should be to lower operational costs
by reducing time spent responding to failures
and the number of dedicated administrators
needed. This is crucial. That’s why close
integration between storage and server
systems, and the quest for total efficiency
via automation is essential.”
Learn more at
hp.com/go/3PAR
Sign up for updates
hp.com/go/getupdated
Share with colleagues
Rate this document
© Copyright 2013 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only
warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein
should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group.
4AA3-5624ENW, June 2013

Download Report