Improved Management, User Experience, Power Consumption Woos Online Map Provider to Sun

The Japanese online map search service Mapion standardized its systems environment on Sun, running Solaris 10 and deploying Sun servers, Sun StorageTek 9985V system for storage, and Solaris Containers to improve performance in its data center. Mapion Mobile leveraged MySQL Cluster Database to create a database with 99.999% availability; while Mapion BB for its broadband users deployed open source technology using the Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server to reduce application management time.

Mapion recently deployed 18 Sun Fire X4150 servers, 3 Sun Blade 6000 modular systems, 3 Sun Blade X6250 servers, 1 Sun Blade T6320 server, and the Sun StorageTek 9985V system for storage consolidation and virtualization. By consolidating its IT infrastructure on Sun, Mapion benefits from simplified support and maintenance, leading to reduced costs.

The company is running Solaris 10 and Solaris Containers to consolidate multiple applications on one system and increase utilization rates. Solaris Containers provide a one-application-per server environment while consolidating those applications onto shared hardware resources. For Mapion's users, the result is a significant reduction in the time required for image generation when displaying maps.

“With its variety of commands for enhanced server management, Solaris 10 Operating System offers efficient monitoring of the system, which eases the workload of the systems administrator, while running Solaris Containers makes effective use of system resources. CPUs with low utilization rates, including those servers supporting online services, can be diverted to the image generation process. An operation performed by a dedicated machine, which had previously taken one month to complete, can now be finished in less than ten days,” commented Yukio Hasegawa, manager, Mapion Technology Development Department, Operational Technology Group, Mapion.

Mapion also wanted to renew its customer management system for Mapion Mobile, its fee-based online map service for mobile devices. Due to the service operating as a fee-based model, the customer management system behind Mapion Mobile must be available 24/7 or Mapion risked losing customers to its competitors.

“The server lease was about to expire, and the existing MySQL 3.1 database was providing a consistent service, but with Mapion Mobile being a fee-based service, we wanted a new system that would further reduce downtime,” explained Takashi Ando, a database engineer in the Mapion Technology Development Department, Service Development Group, Mapion.

Mapion adopted MySQL Cluster Database because it allows for the availability of existing applications through its 'shared-nothing' distributed architecture with no single point of failure, to meet Mapion's mission-critical application requirements of 99.999% availability. This is coupled with automatic data partitioning with load balancing, which allows almost unlimited database scalability for the company.

The Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server, an open source application server, was deployed for Mapion BB map service for broadband users. The dynamic clustering available with the Sun GlassFish Enterprise Server means that it is now possible to run batch application deployment and updates, substantially reducing the workload while also maintaining availability.

“Switching the application server to GlassFish has resulted in a substantial reduction in the operational management workload," commented Hasegawa. "It offers easy-to-use functions which are indispensable in day-to-day operations, including batch deployment to multiple application servers.”

More Information

Details on Mapion's adoption of Sun technologies

Sun Fire X4150 Server

Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 Server

Sun Blade X6250 Server Module

Sun Blade T6320 Server Module

GlassFish Enterprise Server

Sun Java System Web Proxy Server

Sun Blade 6000 Chassis

Sun StorageTek 9985V System

Solaris Container Manager

MySQL Cluster Database