Astellas Pharma

New Solution Helps Pharmaceutical Maker Improve IT Performance and Security

Astellas Pharma Inc. (Astellas Pharma) is one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturers in Japan and has operations worldwide. As part of a periodic IT review, the company sought to improve performance of its enterprise messaging environment to support high traffic volumes while reducing the number of servers it requires. To achieve these goals, Astellas Pharma worked with IT partner CAC Corporation and Microsoft® Services consultants to upgrade from Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. It also strengthened existing security measures by deploying Microsoft Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server. The new solution more effectively filters malicious software from nearly 226,000 e-mail messages every day. It also supports a high-performance 64-bit architecture, simplifies IT management, and requires only 8 servers, compared with 12 for the previous solution.

Situation

Headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, Astellas Pharma is a global manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of pharmaceuticals. The company was formed in 2005 by the merger of Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., and Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Astellas Pharma is best known for its products in the areas of immunology and urology, and it is now the largest Japanese pharmaceutical company in terms of both sales and investment in research and development. With additional major operations in North America, Europe, and other parts of Asia, Astellas Pharma employs nearly 14,000 workers and had FY2007 revenues of 972.5 billion yen (U.S.$9.726 billion).

Astellas Pharma Inc.

Our recent decision to deploy Forefront Security for Exchange Server has further increased our sense of security. It is so well designed and unobtrusive that it is not noticeable from the user’s perspective.  Akihiro Shiotani Deputy Director of the Infrastructure Group Astellas Pharma Information Systems Department

Astellas Pharma (specifically, its predecessor, Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.) originally began using Microsoft® Exchange Server 5.5 in 1997. The company upgraded to Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server in 2002 and continued using this version after its merger with Fujisawa Pharmaceutical in 2005. At that time, the company’s IT department supported 10,000 users, 11,000 Exchange 2000 Server mailboxes, and public folders with 300 gigabytes of storage.

Additionally, in 2006, in order to improve its disaster recovery strategy, Astellas Pharma constructed a networked system that linked the company’s main service site in Tokyo with a backup disaster recovery center in Osaka. With this system, e-mail could be resumed within four hours, even if the main service site failed.

To manage continuing growth, the company periodically looks at cost-effective ways to support more users, handle increasing e-mail volume, and take advantage of new technologies. “At Astellas Pharma, we are always contemplating the shape of our IT infrastructure with a medium- to long-term view,” says Akihiro Shiotani, Deputy Director of the Infrastructure Group of the Astellas Pharma Information Systems Department. “We conduct a review of the e-mail system every five years. After the merger five years ago, the number of e-mail users almost doubled, and we had to add more servers. As a result, maintenance costs increased. Looking ahead, we realized the same system could not be sustained.”

Additionally, Astellas Pharma wanted to enhance its ongoing efforts to protect its enterprise messaging system from spam, viruses, and other threats. The company

Keiichi Saito

sought to make the system as safe as possible without diminishing performance.

Solution

In mid-2006, Astellas Pharma decided to upgrade its enterprise messaging system to Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 and to augment existing protection technologies by deploying Microsoft Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server. The company selected Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 as its messaging and collaboration client.

In July 2006, the company began planning the deployment of the new solution. In September, Astellas Pharma chose IT partner CAC Corporation to assist with the project. “We had a relationship with CAC Corporation to assist with the project,” says Shiotani.

Additionally, the pharmaceutical company took advantage of its Microsoft Services Premier Support by asking Microsoft Services consultants to assist with planning, testing, verifying performance, and deployment.

Because Exchange Server 2007 and Forefront Security for Exchange Server had not yet been officially released in 2006, Astellas Pharma initially worked with beta

Akihiro Shiotani

versions of the software. Performance testing of Exchange Server 2007 using a load tool began in December 2006. “We wanted to see to what extent we would be able to reduce the number of servers that would be required to support the new system,” says Tetsuya Omachi, Group Head of the Medicine Systems Group at CAC. “To obtain quantitative verification of this, real machine tests were indispensible.” These tests were performed in a laboratory of the server computer vendor, and the test scenarios were prepared by Microsoft Services consultants.

Specifically, for the memory capacity, Astellas Pharma used the values recommended by Microsoft and chose a load profile to match the company's IT environment. Verification tests were repeated over a period of seven to eight hours.

Forefront Security for Exchange Server can support up to five scanning engines at the same time. Thus, it offers a more secure environment, compared with products that support using only a single engine.  Akihiro Shiotani Deputy Director of the Infrastructure Group Astellas Pharma Information Systems Department

Additionally, the company performed tests both with and without Forefront Security for Exchange Server to make sure that the CPU load would remain between 30 and 50 percent. This helped demonstrate that enhancing security with the software would not adversely affect overall system performance.
 
Detailed designs of the solution architecture were created in January 2007. Functional tests in an Astellas Pharma staging environment were conducted in February and March. At that time, the company began a limited production deployment to about 50 users in the IT department to gather information on how well the new software would perform under real-world conditions. Shiotani says, “In the case of using a product that has not been officially released, it is important that product information be made available quickly to our developers. This is because the work we perform completely changes depending on whether technical updates are available from the product’s manufacturer.”

Omachi goes on to say that the information-gathering phase went especially smoothly because of the participation of Microsoft Services consultants.  “A project like this could not have been possible without the involvement of Microsoft.”

In April, final plans were made for full deployment, and in May, the new solution was put into production for all Japanese domestic users. “Earlier we had given some thought to upgrading more gradually,” says Jun Kamata, Solutions Manager for the Medicine Information Technology and Information Systems Group at CAC. “However, we determined that maintaining two e-mail environments would be too much of a burden, so we decided to migrate everyone at once. This migration was accomplished without interrupting service: When users came to work on May 7, they shifted to the new environment with just a simple mouse click.”

Benefits

By deploying Forefront Security for Exchange Server, Astellas Pharma strengthened the security of its Exchange Server 2007 environment. Additionally, enhanced

Tetsuya Omachi

server roles in Exchange Server 2007 simplified IT management, and the new version offered higher performance and required fewer servers than Exchange 2000 Server did.

Stronger Security

Astellas Pharma believes in using several layers of defense to protect its users and its IT infrastructure from malicious software, and it uses a third-party security appliance to provide the first layer. For subsequent layers, a key advantage of Forefront Security for Exchange Server is its ability to support multiple, concurrent scanning engines. “Forefront Security for Exchange Server can support up to five scanning engines at the same time,” says Shiotani. “Thus, it offers a more secure environment, compared with products that support using only a single engine.”

Shiotani also appreciates the expertise that Microsoft brings to improving the security of its software. “With Forefront Security for Exchange Server, our comfort level is higher because the mail server and the security product are tightly integrated, and they’re both offered by the same vendor,” he adds.

Astellas Pharma is particularly concerned about the security of its e-mail system given the high volume of messages it sends and receives—an average of 226,000 communications daily. Every month, 650,000 spam messages coming from outside the company are initially filtered by the third-party security appliance. The remaining spam messages are filtered by Forefront Security for Exchange Server on the Hub Transport servers and Mailbox servers using a 10-step process. Outgoing e-mail is also scanned before it is sent. This process is illustrated in the diagram below:

Forefront Security for Exchange Server Scan Configuration

With Forefront Security for Exchange Server, our comfort level is higher because the mail server and the security product are tightly integrated, and they’re both offered by the same vendor.  Akihiro Shiotani Section Chief of the Infrastructure Group Astellas Pharma Information Systems Department

E-mail messages are also checked for viruses, and the security appliance detects and neutralizes about 1,000 of them every month. The fraction of messages that do slip through has been effectively blocked by the new solution. “Over the last five years, we have not had any viruses get through all our layers of protection and infect the system, but we must remain vigilant,” says Shiotani. “Our recent decision to deploy Forefront Security for Exchange Server has further increased our sense of security. It is so well designed and unobtrusive that it is not noticeable from the user’s perspective.”

Simpler IT Management

In previous versions of Exchange Server, administrators had few choices about what features were installed on a particular server computer. Now, with server roles, installation options are much more flexible, which makes the IT environment easier to manage. A server role logically groups the features and components that are required to perform a specific function in the messaging environment. Two of the most important server roles are:

• Mailbox servers, which store user mailboxes and public folders.
• Hub Transport servers, which handle all mail flow inside an organization, apply transport rules, maintain journaling policies, and deliver messages to recipients’

Jun Kamata

mailboxes.

Shiotani says, “With the role model used by Exchange Server 2007, we can easily assign specific roles to individual servers. These roles can be clearly divided according to each server’s function, which is a major benefit. Server roles simplify the task of designing an IT environment and make it easier to operate even large server farms with a high level of stability.”

Higher Performance, Fewer Servers

In the previous environment, the IT department had to manage six clusters (12 nodes). In the new environment, two servers are used to support the company’s mailboxes, and one is used for public folders. An additional server provides backup functionality, resulting in a configuration of three active servers and one passive server. Four servers are also installed between the Internet and the Mailbox servers and have been assigned the Hub Transport server role, and they distribute loads through Network Load Balancing. This configuration is illustrated in the diagram below.

Exchange Server 2007 System Configuration

 
These 8 servers replace 12 servers that were required to support the previous environment.

Additionally, with the 64-bit design of Exchange Server 2007, Astellas Pharma can get better performance from both hardware and software. “One of the most attractive features of Exchange Server 2007 is its compatibility with 64-bit architecture,” says Keiichi Saito, Manager of the Infrastructure Group of the Astellas Pharma Information Systems Department. “By migrating to 64-bit architecture from the previous 32-bit architecture, the usable memory capacity greatly expands, and performance increases. As a result, the number of servers that have to be maintained can be reduced.”

In addition to offering high performance, the new solution is also very reliable. “Even though Exchange Server 2007 and Forefront Security for Exchange Server are new products, they are very stable,” says Shiotani. “The new solution has already achieved stability that is equivalent to what we had with Exchange 2000 Server, and we expect that the reliability will continue to improve as updates are released.”

More Flexible Options for Future Enhancements

With the smooth deployment and operation of Exchange Server 2007 and Forefront Security for Exchange Server, Astellas Pharma is planning new projects that will further improve and help secure the IT environment.

For example, the company is considering implementing Windows® Rights Management Services to protect e-mail and Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 documents, as it already does for Microsoft Office System documents. This approach will provide a collaboration infrastructure across the company.

Additionally, Astellas Pharma will further enhance disaster recovery procedures for enterprise messaging by simply executing a script. As a result, the time required to switch over to the backup system will be reduced from four hours to less than two. And soon, the company will expand the deployment of its enterprise messaging and security solution to include overseas operations. Shiotani concludes, “2010 is the target year for standardizing globally on Exchange Server 2007 and Forefront Security for Exchange Server. The present deployment is just the beginning.”

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/

For more information about CAC Corporation products and services, call 81 (3) 6667-8000 (Japan) or visit the Web site at:
http://www.cac.co.jp/

For more information about Astellas Pharma products and services, call 81 (3) 3244-3000 (Japan) or visit the Web site at:
http://www.astellas.com/

Microsoft Forefront Product Portfolio

The Microsoft Forefront comprehensive line of business security products provides greater protection and control through integration with your existing IT infrastructure and through simplified deployment, management, and analysis. Forefront is a comprehensive solution that helps provide protection for the client operating system, application servers, and the network edge.

For more information about the Forefront product portfolio, go to:
www.microsoft.com/forefront 

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published June 2008