A leading network and systems integrator from Japan, NTT WEST Group, through its subsidiary NTT Business Solutions, has chosen HPE GreenLake as the edge-to-cloud technology for its growing ‘Regional Revitalization Cloud.’ This offering provides a hybrid cloud service to local governments, educational institutions, and enterprises across western Japan.
The new hybrid cloud solution would satisfy the company’s customer needs for reliable cloud services that span public and private cloud environments. It would also ensure that vital data is kept near to the end user, relieving any worries about data sovereignty.
The ‘Regional Revitalization Cloud’ of the NTT WEST Group is focused on resolving regional concerns and assisting businesses and institutions in accelerating their digital transformation. The initiative of NTT WEST Group is based on a regional information integration platform that combines NTT Group’s various technologies, NTT WEST’s regional data centers and other facilities, business sector-specific consulting services, community-based support capabilities, and leading partner companies’ highly advanced cloud technologies.
To establish a solid regional delivery model, NTT WEST Group is developing a real hybrid cloud solution that combines Microsoft Azure public cloud with the HPE GreenLake platform.
Data Centers in Western Japan
NTT WEST Group has installed the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud technology, which is powered by HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack Hub, allowing the company to offer Azure-consistent services from its own data centers. The HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform was chosen by NTT WEST Group to swiftly handle the varying requirements, resources, and budgets across the many prefectures. The initial cloud services were released in Kyoto, Tottori, and Aichi, and are currently being rolled out in individual data centers across 30 prefectures in western Japan.
“Our purpose is to realize the well-being of people in regional communities and we are taking the lead in solving various social challenges with the power of ICT as a ‘Pioneer in Social ICT’,” said Hidenori Kigami, executive officer, Value Design Department, NTT Business Solutions. “We have selected the HPE GreenLake platform because it accelerates our customers’ digital transformation and quickly scales performance and capacity to meet our customers’ business demands. HPE GreenLake allows us to pay for what we use so we can accurately match our costs to revenue and we can invest efficiently to expand the regional revitalization cloud”.
Regional Revitalization Cloud
To engage with clients in achieving digital transformation, NTT WEST Group is leveraging its communications network infrastructure, the ‘Regional Revitalization Cloud,’ technical skills, and collaborations with local system integrators. With their ‘Smart10x’ strategy, which distributes applications previously built for specific projects as priority cloud services, demand for the Regional Revitalization Cloud is likely to rise even more, according to the company.
NTT WEST Group is also collaborating closely with clients to determine which applications, workloads, and data should be hosted in the public cloud and which should be hosted locally. Some client data, for example, is anonymized before being analyzed and processed on Microsoft Azure, while other data is securely kept in NTT WEST Group’s local data centers, resulting in a true hybrid cloud environment. Another example is when applications or services that were originally developed for the public cloud are being migrated to the ‘Regional Revitalization Cloud’ under a pay-per-use, SaaS, or subscription model. These are some examples of how the hybrid cloud model is being implemented, and how NTT WEST Group is improving its understanding of how to operate in this environment and save costs.
HPE Pointnext Services
“NTT WEST Group’s Regional Revitalization Cloud initiative to accelerate digital transformation for local governments, educational institutions, and corporations is truly advanced and extremely innovative,” said Hirokazu Mochizuki, managing director, HPE Japan. “We are honored that NTT West Group has chosen HPE’s portfolio to run data and applications that cannot be deployed in the public cloud due to security constraints, and are excited to see how the HPE GreenLake platform is being leveraged strategically to maximize their cloud business. In addition, as we have the common mission to accelerate our customers’ digital transformation, I would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to NTT WEST Group for selecting HPE as a partner for the revitalization of the region. Together with NTT West Group and system integrator partners, we look forward to maximizing the Regional Revitalization Cloud and contributing to energizing local communities.”
NTT WEST Group has also enlisted HPE Pointnext Services to provide HPE Complete Care, which includes a dedicated HPE team to operate and maintain the ‘Regional Revitalization Cloud’ service infrastructure and support the delivery of the regional revitalization program across all 30 initial prefectures. Additionally, the HPE team is responsible for ensuring that frequent and complex changes to the technological stack are delivered in a timely and effective manner, maintaining consistency and quality.
Today, HPE GreenLake has a total contract value of $5.7 billion, 900 partners offering the platform, and 1,250 enterprise clients across 50 countries, including Fortune 500 firms, government and public sector organizations, as well as small and midmarket businesses.
