Fault-tolerant IA server "Express5800/320La" provides powerful support for most data processing related to Co-op Hiroshima's cooperative purchasing operations.

Order processing and other core operations have become increasingly dependent on information systems, and as this dependence grows, so too will the extent of losses suffered when those systems go off line for one reason or another.
In the spring of 2001, the Hiroshima Consumers' Co-operative (Co-op Hiroshima) established a policy of analyzing and verifying information system risks from a wide range of perspectives, as a means of preventing losses and resolving problems. In August of the same year, as a part of these efforts, it selected the Express5800/ft server as the communications server for centralized management of cooperative purchasing order form processing. This "fault-tolerant" server is fully equipped with duplicates for all major components to minimize risk in the event of a system failure.

"The communications server is down!" --- Major failure occurs suddenly while risk management plans are being established

The Hiroshima Consumers' Co-operative (Co-op Hiroshima), which has around 330,000 members in Hiroshima Prefecture, has gained attention for its efforts to respond quickly to changes in society and the economy --- for example by starting up personalized deliveries at all its branch locations --- based on the spirit of "cooperation" among residents.
Up until the mid-1990s, both the number of member households and the value of goods supplied (annual sales) were increasing steadily, but over the past few years, although the number of member households has continued to grow, total sales have leveled off. Masaomi Sasaki, a Supervising Manager in the Operations Group of Co-op Hiroshima's Information Service Division, explains.
"The slump in consumer spending, the effects of deflation, and the appearance of competing companies offering non-store retail services are just a few of the factors involved. We have been working to reduce the number of employees at each workplace and to reduce distribution costs, in an effort to create an organization that will generate profits even if sales don't increase. In terms of information systems, we have implemented a low-cost network infrastructure, and have begun outsourcing host computer operation and management."
These efforts bore fruit in FY2000, when the desired results began to appear. In the spring of 2001, however, a problem arose in Co-op Hiroshima's cooperative purchasing communications server. This server sends and receives a variety of data between the branch locations and the Outsourcing Center (which houses the host computer and other equipment) during joint purchasing operations. Order forms from Co-op members are read by OCR and distributed to the relevant branch locations; order data from the branches is then sent to the host computer via the "cooperative purchasing communications server." Based on this process, nearly all data that is created by the host computer in relation to cooperative purchasing operations --- including order data for suppliers, daily reports, shipping schedules to be sent to individual branch locations, and data sent to the product centers for gathering products for co-op member groups --- is processed through the communications server.
The incident occurred in April 2001. "There was a failure in the power supply to the CPU, and the communications server went off line. Fortunately, the failure occurred late at night, and we were able to bring the system back on line within four hours, so a major crisis was averted, but even so ... Every week, this server handles about 130,000 order forms, with orders totaling upwards of 700 million yen. If the server had gone down during the day, we would have suffered huge losses --- members wouldn't be able to place their orders, orders processing would be impossible, the product centers couldn't prepare goods for shipment ... it would have affected every aspect of our operations." At that time, Sasaki had just begun a study of the overall information system, studying risk management a wide range of perspectives.

Fault-tolerant IA server "Express5800/ft" adopted as a part of improvements to IT management

Masaomi Sasaki Operations Group Supervising Manager Information Service Division Co-op Hiroshima

The Information Service Division was thus faced with an urgent task: to learn a lesson from this system failure, and put in place a system that would prevent failures before they occurred, and ensure minimal effects and rapid recovery in the event that a failure ever happened. Shortly thereafter, Co-op Hiroshima's SI vendor proposed a system based on the recently released Express5800/ft server --- the world's first Windows2000 fault-tolerant IA server. "We were very pleased with the proposal," says Sasaki, "particularly because all hardware aside from the UPS was redundant, enabling hardware failure control, because the system could be implemented at roughly half the cost of cluster configuration systems, and because we could continue to use our application assets without modifications."
Sasaki's IT risk management proposal was approved, and the decision was made to install the Express5800/ft server as a part of the organization's management improvement measures. During the implementation process, one side of the ft server was shut down to conduct software operation checks and other tests.
We asked about the effects attained through implementation of the new system now that about four months have passed since operations began in the autumn of 2001. "There have been no failures since the new system was started up," says Sasaki, "so we haven't had a chance to see the fault-tolerant functions in action. Still, we are very pleased that we now have a system that allows us to carry out maintenance and repairs without interrupting system operations even if such a failure does ever occur."

Investigating fault-tolerant functions for E-commerce and other systems, with a view toward a fully open environment

Now that Co-op Hiroshima has completed its fault-tolerant communications server system, it is considering transferring existing RAID5 components to the fault-tolerant system as well. This would include the PC servers installed as product master servers and E-commerce servers used in conjunction with Co-op Hiroshima's B2C site "Palette Shopping," which targets retail sales of books, CDs, and other media.
"Right now," explains Sasaki, "we have a mixed environment with general-purpose machines and open systems, but given that we have increased the system's potential and reduced risks with the Express5800/ft server, we are now looking into the next phase, with a view toward a fully open environment. In order to achieve this, one issue for the current fiscal year will be to establish security policies that take into account information systems, management systems, and the physical aspects of our operations as well."
NEC's Express5800/ft servers facilitate the construction of fault-tolerant systems at unprecedented low costs, targeting mission-critical areas that demand assurance of minimal downtime. It won't be long before these servers are providing powerful support for Co-op Hiroshima's multi-purpose open platform environment.