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Mr. Takahito Shishime
Information Policy Division,
Miyakonojo City Council
Mr. Hiroshi Horikiri
Information Policy Division,
Miyakonojo City Council
"NEC's proposal was excellent in terms of its detailed operational support."
Mr. Yutaka Sakoda
Information Policy Division,
Miyakonojo City Council
"We needed to reduce operating costs and maintain our overall security levels."
Miyakonojo City of Miyazaki Prefecture, is the 3rd largest municipality in southern Kyusyu with a population of roughly 170,000. In 2007, one year after a merger with four other neighboring municipalities, the city council launched its system consolidation project.
The manager of the Information Policy Division recalls the situation at the time. "In 2007, the Information Policy Division was managing 64 servers. The server room was full and we were having a lot of trouble maintaining the servers due to limited personnel, budget, and space. We realized that something needed to be done to resolve the situation and help us create a more efficient and effective information infrastructure. It was at this point that we decided to consolidate our servers using virtualization."
The manager goes on to state the specific reasons why the Information Policy Division wanted to consolidate its servers. "We had four specific aims. The first was to create an efficient and flexible information system infrastructure that would reduce the cost of setting up and maintaining new business applications . The second was to reduce operating and management costs by physically reducing the number of servers and raising the overall security levels of our information system. The third was to consolidate duplicate business systems created by multiple sections each having its own server and the merger of cities and towns. The fourth was to eliminate initial procurement and ongoing maintenance costs by using virtual servers which would eliminate the need to purchase new server hardware."
In 2007, virtualization and consolidation of a server system run by a municipality with a population of about 170,000 was almost unheard of.
The manager of the Information Policy Division recalls: "We were a little nervous, but we estimated that the benefits outweighed the risks, so we decided to go ahead with the project. In 2008, the leases on some of our servers where scheduled to expire. If our consolidation project was successful, we expected that we would be able to consolidate many of our servers, and therefore would not have to renew the lease contracts. Moreover, the 15 servers whose leases were due to expire first were only used within the city council for internal operations; they were not used for operations related to city residents. This meant that even if the project should fail, the impact would be relatively mild."
The 15 servers subject to virtualization ran 12 applications. After deciding to go ahead with the consolidation project, the Miyakonojo City Council made a list of vendors with a proven track record who could both set up and operate a total solution that included hardware, operating systems, and virtualization software. Eventually, NEC was shortlisted along with three other companies. In January of 2008, the council sent out a request for information (RFI) to the four companies and began the work of breaking down the information, checking the feasibility of specifications, and comparing estimates. The council then sent out a request for proposal (RFP), asking the companies to draft and submit a proposal based on the information already received. The shortlisted companies were then asked to make a presentation.
The manager recalls: "After seeing all the presentations, NEC's proposal was the one that came closest to meeting all of our requirements. In April 2008, we therefore chose NEC as our vendor.”
*NEC was chosen although it did not have any major contracts with Miyakonojo City at that time.”
NEC proposed a solution that consisted of NEC Express5800/SIGMABLADE servers, VMware Infrastructure 3 virtualization software, and SigmaSystemCenter system management software.
"All the proposals included a combination of each company's server and VMware Infrastructure 3 virtualization software, but only NEC included system management software―SigmaSystemCenter," recalls the manager of the Information Policy Division. "Our server virtualization project was one that had few precedents and many anticipated difficulties. We were looking for a proposal that would provide specific operational support and relieve some of our concerns. NEC's proposed use of SigmaSystemCenter system management software as well as a detailed and specific operational support plan were key points. NEC's proposal was also superior in terms of saving space, installing the servers in a single rack as compared to the two racks proposed by the other companies."
The Miyakonojo City Council and NEC started work on the server consolidation project in April of 2008. In addition to evaluating an extremely large number of applications for testing purposes, NEC ran all applications in a test environment to ensure stable operations.
The servers were moved to the virtual environment very carefully so as not to cause license violations―which can easily occur because it is easy to add operating systems to virtual servers.
In October, after the target systems had been transferred to the virtual environment and their operation verified, the systems were successfully transferred on schedule. Moreover, although the initial plan was to consolidate 15 servers into four, in the end the city was actually able to consolidate them into two.
At the end of the consolidation project, the manager of the Information Policy Division at the Miyakonojo City Council had this to say: "What NEC told us about the excellence and stability of VMware software was perfectly true: all 12 systems from the 15 old servers were transferred to the virtual servers without any failures and were stable after the transfer."
The manager went on to talk about the council's original aims. "In the past, we had to add a server every time we set up a new business system. But now, as long as there are sufficient resources on the physical servers, we can launch new applications quickly, without having to purchase a new server or incur maintenance costs. We have also been able to lower operating costs and reduce operational errors by standardizing our procedures. I therefore feel that we have made significant progress in achieving our aim of creating a more effective information infrastructure for the Miyakonojo City Council, that's to say, an efficient and flexible information system infrastructure that will enable more effective and better administrative services."
The Miyakonojo City Council plans to continue expanding its information system infrastructure and consolidating servers as leases expire, including the servers used in each business section and the servers used by local agencies, which total more than one hundred.
"From an environmental point of view, by consolidating our servers and minimizing future hardware purchases, we estimate that we will reduce our system power consumption by as much as 80% over the next five years," said the manager. He added, "Throughout this project NEC provided us with detailed and precise support whenever we needed it. We knew that NEC was behind us 100% in wanting this project to succeed. We hope to continue this excellent partnership, and reap further benefits from NEC's advanced technologies and expertise."
| Address | 6-21 Himegicho, Miyakonojo City, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan 885-8555 |
|---|---|
| Population | 170,987 |
| Total area | 653.8 km2 |
| URL | http://www.city.miyakonojo.miyazaki.jp/ (Japanese) |
(Mar 5, 2010)
"This project was unprecedented, but I knew it must be completed."