Anritsu: Suppliers to the fast-moving telecoms industry
Anritsu makes electronic measuring instruments, optical devices, and other products that support telecommunications. They provide smartphone/tablet manufacturers throughout the world with equipment for wireless communication systems. They also supply measuring instruments that are needed for the development and quality assurance of devices, services and applications.
A fully functioning ERP system is absolutely essential for Anritsu’s day-to-day operations, and it’s a key priority for the company’s strategic IT department. Since its first deployment approximately 10 years ago, Anritsu had been running SAP from the server room at their Atsugi headquarters. But when the Great East Japan Earthquake struck, the development of a business continuity plan became a key focus for Anritsu.
How we helped
In order to protect the company in the event of a natural disaster, Anritsu decided to outsource their SAP ERP data to an external data center. They chose IIJ as their partner for the move, because our SAP expertise and service ethic matched their priorities:
- Achieving safety and data security.
Anritsu needed ”a data center which was able to seamlessly connect to a wide area network, and that was geographically separated from our Atsugi head office,” says Yuji Shinohara, head of the company’s Management Information Systems Department. They decided on an IIJ data center in the Kansai region. The company then built on-premises SAP development, testing, and production environments on VMware virtual servers. In addition to a backbone system, they also built file servers, web servers and groupware for its information systems on VMware. They housed all important systems at the IIJ data center. - SAP expertise.
IIJ’s long-standing relationship with SAP and the “SAP Certified in Hosting Services” and “SAP Certified in Cloud Services” designations were a major factor in Anritsu’s choice of IIJ as a cloud service provider. This assured them that IIJ would provide best-in-class service and the highest levels of:- Security
- Operational management
- Infrastructure stability
- Support systems
- Cost efficiency.
In addition to disaster protection, Anritsu had another project: The deployment of SAP GTS, a trade control software to enhance the existing ERP. For this platform, the company adopted the IIJ GIO Component Service Virtual Platform VW Series, which allows clients to freely combine VMware vSphere-installed virtual servers, storage and a network resource pool to establish private cloud platforms. “For the GTS deployment, our goal was a full-scale migration to the cloud, so we performed a thorough cost comparison with an on-premises solution. As a result, we determined that IIJ’s cloud has an advantage and decided to construct SAP GTS using VW Series”, says Shinohara.
The results
With their ERP data in a safe place and GTS running smoothly, Anritsu is already embarking on new initiatives with IIJ:
- IT Service outsourcing.
In addition to IIJ data center services, cloud services, and network services, the company now also uses other IIJ services such as IIJ Secure MX Service for anti-spam. And Anritsu will continue to use IIJ due to their previous high levels of satisfaction:”We are being provided with a total information system platform to support our business. IIJ provides steadfast support, and maintains reliability and stability while also keeping operational costs to a minimum by connecting systems seamlessly,” says Shinohara. - Total ERP migration.
Anritsu plans to migrate their entire SAP ERP, which it has built and runs on-premise, to the IIJ GIO cloud service. This means they can outsource maintenance and operation of servers and other hardware assets to IIJ, and completely eliminate the need for physical ownership.
IIJ has helped the Management Information Systems Department re-focus on its core mission. By entrusting their platforms to IIJ, they are now able to devote themselves to their real job again: planning and designing strategic uses of IT.
