NTT Data Corporation

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NTT Data Corporation, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, offers a variety of information services for the enterprise, financial and public administration sectors. Within the financial sector, NTT Data operates the Insurance and Mutual Assistance business unit, which provides various services and solutions for the life and non-life insurance fields, including systems integration and outsourcing.

NTT Data also provides the Insurance Company Common Gateway, a web-based network infrastructure, compatible with standardized system specifications in life and non-life insurance industries. As a framework through which insurance agencies can access multiple insurance companies' information systems through a single sign-on, the Common Gateway significantly saves labor and boosts convenience for insurance agencies which have contracts with multiple insurance companies.

The Insurance and Mutual Assistance business unit is responsible for the development and operation of the Common Gateway and had been using dedicated PCs as its system maintenance terminals. To minimize security breaches and risks of data loss, the IT team installed encryption and operation log acquisition software on the PCs and placed restrictions for removable media on the ports. However, once employees had passed the in-house security check, all IT staff were permitted to access the PCs to carry out system maintenance tasks.

As well as wanting improve security, NTT Data also wanted to improve operational efficiency. The company found that IT staff responsible for systems maintenance were logging in to a separate operating terminal for each environment, such as production or development, related to the gateway. This meant that the person responsible for operations management had multiple PC terminals lined up to carry out system maintenance, resulting in additional time and inconvenience for users.

NTT Data had deployed a variety of thin clients in its other business units, including Sun Ray units, and had also sold solutions that integrated the use of thin clients. The Insurance and Mutual Assistance business unit began to investigate the use of thin clients to replace the PCs as terminals for system maintenance. With no data stored inside, deploying a thin client solution reduces the risk of information leaks or data loss. A thin client solution would also be cheaper and more energy efficient compared to NTT Data's current PC solution.

The Insurance and Mutual Assistance business unit worked with NTT Data's Infrastructure System Operations team, responsible for developing and selling thin client solutions, to identify a terminal that would meet the security requirements of the gateway and bring greater operating efficiency.

“We wanted to access the operational screen for multiple environments from a single terminal and for anyone in the IT team to be able to perform operations for any environment from any terminal. We required a thin client environment that would maintain security while ensuring operating efficiencies for the IT team,” says Ms. Masako Sakano, Virtualization Business Project Coordinator for Infrastructure System Operations, NTT Data.

The Infrastructure System Operations' Virtualization Project team recommended a thin client solution and selected Sun Ray 2 virtual display clients and Sun Ray 2FS virtual display clients. User authentication with Sun Ray is a process driven by an ISO/IEC7816-compliant smart card, along with user identification and password for additional security. NTT Data has adopted the smart card as its company identification card for convenience.

To prevent other people from viewing the screen or accessing data when the machine is left unattended, users can simply remove their smart card. With the Sun Ray 2FS units, users can access dual monitors to simultaneously display the operation manual and the system console.

Anticipating that more environments would be connected during future systems upgrades, and to ensure that a single smart card can be used to manage multiple environments, the Virtualization Business Project proposed deploying Sun Ray thin clients with VMware View. VMware View delivers a personalized virtual desktop while maintaining centralized desktop management.

Once the user inserts their smart card into the Sun Ray thin client terminal and enters their password, the account information sent from the terminal determines how that person can access the View Manager server. The user can select connected desktops from the View Manager screen in accordance with the provided authentication information, without needing to use multiple smart cards.

Sun Ray Connector for VMware View Manager connects users of Sun Ray clients to Windows virtual machines via the VMware View Manager. A user is shown a list of available desktops, and does not have to enter their password again at the Windows login.

VMware ESX 3.5 allows multiple operating systems to run on a host computer at the same time. “The system was configured for VMware ESX 3.5 to be incorporated into a Sun Fire X4150 server with the partitioning used to run Sun Ray Software 4, VMware View 3.0.1, and a management console for system maintenance,” says Mr. Susumu Yamamoto, virtualization project consultant in the Infrastructure System operation at NTT Data. "It was a new product but with Sun Ray Connector being VMwareReady, I proposed the combined solution with confidence.”

NTT Data is already benefiting from greater security and productivity. “VMware View runs the desktop operating system as the virtual machine within the VMware virtualized environment. By using VMware View with Sun Ray, we have a sophisticated virtualized environment that supports one-user-multiple-desktops combined with the high degree of security provided by the Sun Ray units,” says Mr. Naruhito Aoki, virtualization project consultant in the Infrastructure System operation at NTT Data.

Mr. Kazuhiko Takamiya, deputy division manager in the Insurance and Mutual Assistance business unit, adds “Previously, several dedicated desktops were needed to access each environment. Only one thin client unit is required under the Sun Ray and VMware View environment, which has greatly improved efficiency. . The space occupied by the terminal has been reduced significantly, giving us more free desk space.”

Going forward, NTT Data is considering expanding the virtualized thin client environment to other teams within the Insurance and Mutual Assistance business unit as Mr Takamiya explains “We expect to see further improvements in efficiency as a result of the planned virtualization of the in-house operating application environment.” The company is also considering selling the solution to its insurance sales agent clients. The combination of Sun Ray clients and VMware View offers a high degree of security and ease of operation.