Sanken Setsubi Kogyo: Ensuring platform reliability and streamlining operations across the company with Bare Metal Solution For Oracle
About Sanken Setsubi Kogyo Co., Ltd.
Founded in 1946, Sanken Setsubi Kogyo has been creating built-up environments for people for generations. Using highly reliable operational systems and advanced engineering technologies, the company provides end-to-end support in various phases of a building's life cycle, from planning, design, and construction, to maintenance, sanitation, and electricals.
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About Cloud Ace, Inc.
Cloud Ace is a one-stop solution provider for businesses, and a Google Cloud Premier Partner. Their services include design, migration, operations, maintenance and training for cloud technologies.
To improve fault tolerance and availability, Sanken Setsubi Kogyo migrated to Bare Metal Solution (BMS) for Oracle with Google Cloud, while maintaining application compatibility with minimal configuration changes.
- Offers a reliable cloud platform that enables customers to operate even in an emergency
- Removes tedious hardware maintenance and downtime
- Ensures a stable system for employees across all the offices and on-site operations
Migrated to BMS to ensure maximum efficiency and improve productivity, with no down time
As an "Environmental innovation company" that focuses on "air" and "water" design elements, Sanken Setsubi Kogyo Co., Ltd. (Sanken Setsubi) offers comprehensive support at every stage of a building's life cycle, from construction to maintenance. In March 31, 2022 the company migrated its internal payroll and ID management system to Bare Metal Solution for Oracle (BMS) to improve workflows and efficiencies. It was the first-ever Google Cloud project in Japan that involved migrating a business system to BMS.
A comprehensive solution for fault tolerance and availability issues
Sanken Setsubi has been migrating its core systems to the cloud for some time, with most of the systems used for company-wide operations already running on Google Cloud. However, the payroll and ID management systems had not yet shifted to the cloud.This is because the company's payroll and ID management systems were configured with third-party products, and Oracle Database was a prerequisite to use them.
Due to licensing, Sanken Setsubi's Oracle Database could not be run in the cloud and remained on the company's on premise servers. According to Keigo Yamanaka, Assistant Section Chief, Information Planning Department, Administration Division at Sanken Setsubi Kogyo, this situation had been a cause for concern within the company.
"Operating systems on on-premise servers inevitably raises fault tolerance and availability concerns. For example, there is a risk of a natural disaster hitting the head office, issues of dealing with hardware breakdowns, downtime caused by electrical facilities inspections, and more. To resolve these issues, we explored the possibility of shifting to the cloud, then learned that BMS is now available in the Tokyo region. So we considered implementing it," says Yamanaka.
At the same time, providing additional services through the HR payroll and ID management system was required, creating a need to replace the servers.
Sanken Setsubi had three options. They could either continue using an on-premises system and just replace the hardware, use SaaS solutions offered by vendors, or try a BMS. The hardware option would not address the fault tolerance and availability concerns for on-premises, while SaaS solutions meant high costs and complicated VPN configurations. This is where BMS came in.
"With BMS, we could migrate to a cloud environment without making major changes to the existing system configuration, while meeting the mandatory requirement of compatibility with our Oracle Database. We also found that in terms of maintenance, it would bring us significant cost advantages. While we had never tried BMS before, we decided to introduce it," says Yamanaka.
The availability of the Oracle Database was not the only decisive factor for implementation. Sanken Setsubi has more than 30 offices, including the head office, branch offices, and sales offices. And each office accesses the core system via VPN.
Furthermore, due to the nature of the business, more than half of Sanken Setsubi's 1,200 strong workforce access the system via SSL-VPN and Single Sign-On (SSO) off-site. Ensuring continuous connectivity is vital when migrating the payroll and ID management systems.
"Operating systems on on-premise servers inevitably raises fault tolerance and availability concerns. For example, there is a risk of a natural disaster hitting the head office, issues of dealing with hardware breakdowns, downtime caused by electrical facilities inspections, and more. To resolve these issues, we explored the possibility of shifting to the cloud."
—Keigo Yamanaka, Information Planning Department, Administration Division, Sanken Setsubi Kogyo Co., Ltd.Managing current SSO for efficient migration
Two virtual machines, an AP server and a DB server, were set up on the BMS using Oracle VM. The AP server is accessible from outside via SSO, and Cloud Load Balancing ensures scalability and performance. Given the ID management system needed to be integrated with external systems such as Google Workspace, Sanken Setsubi implemented the NAT gateway with Compute Engine.
Oracle VMs are managed from the mission-critical system using Oracle VM Manager. Since the core system was already running in a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) on Google Cloud, Sanken Setsubi configured it to be mutually accessible via a VPN connection via the New VPC with BMS. With this configuration, it became possible to take over the existing SSO, with almost no impact on the existing connection environment from the base to the core system, or the usage environment of the personnel payroll system by the on-site staff. The system development took about three months, with support from Cloud Ace Co., Ltd.
"As it was our first time using BMS, there were many things we were unfamiliar with. But with help from Cloud Ace and the Google Cloud team, we managed it. For example, we initially connected BMS directly to the core VPC without using a new VPC. This proved a problem because the Autonomous System number (AS number) was duplicated with the VPN used to connect with existing offices. We eliminated the duplication of AS numbers by adding a new VPC in the middle while routing the traffic using VPC peering," says Yamanaka. Other issues were also resolved through repeated testing of load balancers and the introduction of NAT gateware, for external connections.
"Hardware maintenance is not required, and we no longer have to worry about downtime due to facility inspections. We feel these are huge advantages," says Misaki Ueda, Information Planning Department, Administration Division at Sanken Setsubi Kogyo.
"On-site staff sometimes operate late at night or during weekends, which means maintaining availability is vital. By utilizing BMS, we have shifted to the cloud and started providing a stable system for all employees, which is the most significant benefit," adds Ueda.
"With BMS, we could migrate to a cloud environment without making major changes to the existing system configuration, while meeting the mandatory requirement of compatibility with our Oracle Database. We also found that in terms of maintenance, it would bring us significant cost advantages."
—Keigo Yamanaka, Information Planning Department, Administration Division, Sanken Setsubi Kogyo Co., Ltd.Improving productivity through cloud technology
Cloud Ace, which supported this project, offers cloud implementation and focuses on customers' in-sourcing development of IT systems. Cloud Booster is their implementation support service, and provides accompanying support.
"Sanken Setsubi never hesitates to introduce new technology to solve problems. They have proactively shifted from host computers to Linux, and then to the cloud with Google Cloud," says Kohei Yoshimura, System Development Department, Engineer SRE Leader, Cloud Ace.
"This BMS was the first challenge for our company, too. We can say that we have a win-win relationship with Sanken Setsubi, where both companies can leverage these new technologies together. We hope this project will promote the adoption of BMS for Oracle in Japan," adds Naoki Nakano, Business Planning Department, Business Promotion Division, Cloud Ace.
Hiiragi Kawasaki, Sales Department, Business Promotion Headquarters of Cloud Ace goes on to share "One of the great advantages of Google Cloud is that it allows for a small start, but still offers the advantage of a wide range of products that are simple to operate and have high cost performance, such as AI or machine learning. Another benefit is that complex technologies can be used easily."
"I actually felt that Google Cloud designs connections with on-premises in mind even though it is a cloud. For example, BMS is also on a different network from Google Cloud. However, it connected seamlessly just by adding one setting of Cloud Router, and a hybrid Network Endpoint Group (NEG) was prepared in advance for the load balancer. I feel that the flexibility allowed for hybrid configurations is a great advantage," adds Taichi Nagano, System Development Department, Technology Headquarters, Cloud Ace.
Sanken Setsubi aims to keep trying to introduce new cloud technologies proactively. "Thanks to the strong support from both the Cloud Ace and Google Cloud teams, we could safely complete our first BMS project in Japan and shift to the cloud. Having said that, we are still keeping the server configuration built for an on-premises system," says Yamanaka. "We also hope to start utilizing BI tools, and build a data-analysis platform to meet business needs."
"Hardware maintenance is not required, and we no longer have to worry about downtime due to facility inspections. We feel these are huge advantages."
—Misaki Ueda, Information Planning Department, Administration Division, Sanken Setsubi Kogyo Co., Ltd.Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.
Contact us
About Sanken Setsubi Kogyo Co., Ltd.
Founded in 1946, Sanken Setsubi Kogyo has been creating built-up environments for people for generations. Using highly reliable operational systems and advanced engineering technologies, the company provides end-to-end support in various phases of a building's life cycle, from planning, design, and construction, to maintenance, sanitation, and electricals.
About Cloud Ace, Inc.
Cloud Ace is a one-stop solution provider for businesses, and a Google Cloud Premier Partner. Their services include design, migration, operations, maintenance and training for cloud technologies.