Transferring the out-of-date virtual environment to Azure a multi-cloud option. What is LIXIL’s flexible and effective multi-cloud strategy?

Aiming to Solve Issues of the Out-of-Date Legacy Systems, Which Have Come to the Maintenance Limit, by Transferring to the Cloud

In the midst of the digitalization wave, consumer needs and business structures have been changing nonstop in recent years. LIXIL, whose businesses involve housing equipment and building materials, has also been accelerating their efforts toward DX (digital transformation). Their DX initiatives cover a wide range from the establishment of long-term growth opportunities through innovations to creation of new workstyles for employees. Among these initiatives, they consider the promotion of the cloud shift based on the multi-cloud vision to be a key mission. Mr. Minoru Kakizaki of the Global Infrastructure Organization Server/Hosting Unit, Digital Function, which is in charge of LIXIL’s infrastructure establishment and operation, says that one of the reasons for shifting to the cloud was the urgency of the response to the out-of-date legacy systems.

“LIXIL still has a number of systems working on old operating systems and devices that have come to their maintenance limit, and out-of-date systems had become serious issues. This doesn’t only affect physical servers. Even in virtual environments using VMware products, there are virtual infrastructures with different generations depending on their introduction timing scattered over multiple bases, and legacy systems are still in operation. We started considering shifting to the cloud as one of the measures. We thought we would be able to greatly reduce our internal updating work, such as hardware replacement and software upgrade due to maintenance expiration.” (Mr. Kakizaki)

Mr. Masahiro Nakamaru, who also belongs to the Global Infrastructure Organization Server/Hosting Unit, explains the reason for the number of legacy systems still being in operation in LIXIL as follows.

“One of the reasons for us falling behind in legacy system renewal is the fact that LIXIL came to be in 2011 when the five companies of TOSTEM, INAX, Shin Nikkei, SUNWAVE CORPORATION, and TOYO EXTERIOR merged. Needless to say, we intended to merge the systems, but it was not easy to integrate the five systems, which had been individually operated. It did not go as smoothly as we had hoped. As a result, we ended up with a certain number of systems that missed the replacement timing, which used to happen at the timing of device leasing expiration or end of support. This cloud transfer project was launched also with the aim of regaining such delays.” (Mr. Nakamaru)

Multi-cloud shift was established as the basic policy in the course of considering systems’ transfer to the cloud. Mr. Kakizaki explains: “We thought it would be difficult to flexibly select the right cloud services for the right uses in the future if we fix the transfer destination of the systems, because we would be locked into certain cloud services.” He explains that they decided that establishing an environment where they can freely select the best cloud services would also lead to cost reduction, thus deciding to shift to multi-cloud services.

Grand Design for the Multi-cloud Shift Was Established, and the Cloud Transfer Project for Virtualized Environments Using VMware Products Was Launched

In this project, systems operating on virtual infrastructures are the subjects of the cloud transfer. LIXIL has established virtual environments using VMware products, and the project was named “VCLP (VMware Cloud Lift Project).” The Digital Function promotes a number of missions from phased implementation of domestic core system renewal, redefinition/modernization of the front system, and digital utilization in the reform business to digital democratization. They have been striving to establish an organization that can make continuous contributions. They have employed the scrum system and been promoting the shift from the conventional hierarchy-based organization to an agile organization. They say that approximately 80% of the work have become Scrum-based as of March, 2022. VCLP project also uses the scrum system and has established four teams, including “server environment establishment,” “transfer technology/implementation,” “network environment establishment,” and “operation/implementation.” The cloud transfer has been promoted with an agile concept. Mr. Kakizaki participates in the project as the product owner, and Mr. Nakamaru participates as the scrum master for the server environment establishment team.

The cloud shift to replace out-of-date systems promoted by LIXIL is divided into three major steps. The first step is to “prioritize removal of on-premise environments and transfer to public clouds.” They explain that they will move onto the second step to “use services provided by public clouds to change systems” then to the third step to “promote the reform to modern systems utilizing cloud environments.” Mr. Kakizaki positions this VCLP project to be an initiative in the first step.

“First of all, our considerations were made on the premise of using public clouds as the transfer destinations. We formulated the transfer plan, targeting approximately 500 VMs in virtual environments, which had become out of date and come to the maintenance limit. Under such circumstances, we formulated the grand design (basic policy) to realize multi-cloud environments in 2021. We extracted current issues and targets, such as controlling investments to legacy systems, legacy operating system measures, continued use of IP addresses (transfer without changes), minimization of impact on work of end users, reduction of burden on those in charge of systems, and cost reduction. Based on these issues and targets, we broke them down into specific environment designs and operation designs. This VCLP project is the first step in LIXIL’s cloud shift plan, but the Digital Function has been promoting the initiative while also anticipating the second and third steps to follow.” (Mr. Kakizaki)

Establishing a System to Transfer Virtual Infrastructures Using VMware Products at the Data Center to AVS Environments via the Launching Pad (VMware HCX).

In response to the basic policies for multi-cloud environments being clarified, the VCLP project will make a full-launch in April of 2021. Each scrum team worked closely together to promote the transfer work, targeting the legacy systems that were left behind in the transfer to the new systems and approximately 500 VMs in virtual environments using VMware products that have come to the maintenance limit. Since we will be using multiple cloud services to gain the advantages of shifting to multi-clouds, they employed Microsoft’s full-managed service Azure VMware Solution (hereinafter referred to as “AVS”), which provides VMware vSphere environments on Microsoft Azure (hereinafter referred to as “Azure”), as one of the transfer destination options. Mr. Kakizaki explains the reason for employing AVS as follows.

“As the project name ‘VCLP’ suggests, the concept for this initiative is not to change the VMware vSphere infrastructure, which is a hypervisor, and to further minimize the impact caused by the transfer. Due to this, AVS was an extremely effective option, as it provides full-managed VMware vSphere environments as part of the services. This is because there are many Windows servers in operation in the VMware vSphere virtual environments, which were the subjects of this transfer, and we can make the transfer without additionally purchasing the Windows server/SQL server licenses by utilizing the Azure Hybrid Benefit, which is a SA (software assurance) benefit. This offered advantages in terms of the license cost compared to other cloud services. In addition, we plan to transfer legacy environments, including Windows Server 2008 and 2012, and we hope that we will be able to receive the advantage of the free Extended Security Update (ESU) program, which offers the security update program even after the support end date, on Azure.” (Mr. Kakizaki)

Mr. Nakamaru also says that the PoC conducted prior to the introduction identified two issues that arise when transferring LIXIL virtual environments to AVS and explains the creativity in terms of system configuration, such as separating HCX, which will be the launching pad connecting on-premise virtual infrastructures and AVS, into two parts.

“In the PoC conducted prior to introducing AVS, we were able to confirm that it was necessary to establish an environment in which we connect the virtual infrastructures at LIXIL data center to environments established on AVS through L2 stretch via VMware HCX, which we refer to as ‘launching pad’.” The problem was that there were two different requirements, including the Cross Host vMotion requirement used for migration and HCX L2 stretch requirement to make the transfer without changing IP addresses. Although the first requirement is no longer required after the transfer is complete, we wanted to continue using the latter even after the transfer. Due to this, we made the configuration by separating the launching pad (HCX) into two parts. We utilized creativity, such as continuing to use the existing resources for the launching pad for the transfer and newly procuring the launching pad for the L2 stretch, as we would be using it for a long time. I think this is the characteristic of this project in terms of the systems.” (Mr. Nakamaru)

The system configuration that we have established is on a multi-cloud platform. On-premise virtual environments are designed so that they can be deployed to AVS and other cloud services via the L2 stretch of the launching pad (HCX). Mr. Kakizaki explains that what they struggled with system configuration was the many servers operating on old operating systems. He looks back on the struggle, saying “Even though we wanted to directly transfer out-of-date VMware vSphere environments to AVS, upgrading of product middleware in operation was sometimes required. There were more than a few occasions where we couldn’t upgrade them because of the impact on the existing work.” In addition to the above, there have been concerning problems in terms of the response, including the delay caused by unwanted separation of AP and DB that temporarily occurs during the transfer to public clouds. Part of these problems are still being responded to while testing. Mr. Nakamaru, who was the scrum leader for the server environment establishment team, explains that they were able to utilize the advantages of the scrum system that allows flexible schedule changes to solve such issues. We feel that the organizational reform promoted by the Digital Function is effective.

Promote the Initiative by Aiming to Utilize Advantages of Each Cloud Service to Allocate the Right Systems for the Right Use

This VCLP project is an initiative with anticipation for internalization and was promoted based on the premise of autonomous operation. Mr. Kakizaki says that, because of this, they also received the kind of support to boost internalization in the Microsoft Premier Support, which had been used until they started operating AVS.

“Since our aim is autonomous operation, our principle stance was that WE would be the ones doing the actual work. We asked the Microsoft Premier Support team to provide support mainly on knowledge transfer. They also hosted workshops and hands-on sessions for project team members, and we are truly grateful that we were able to gain the knowledge necessary to shift to internalization.” (Mr. Kakizaki)

Furthermore, they are establishing a standardized backup system mainly by the server environment establishment team due to the multi-cloud shift. In this effort, AVS and Azure functions are used. Mr. Nakamaru expresses joy, saying that the Premier Support know-how was utilized in the design aspect of this backup system.

“We are currently promoting PoC of the backup environment with the support of Microsoft in order to standardize the backup system for different cloud services while limiting the cost. We utilize Azure VM Blob storage for the backup structure. We were able to confirm that we have come to the level that poses no problem in the application.” (Mr. Nakamaru)

The VCLP project was promoted while fully utilizing the shared knowledge of Premier Support and scrum members, and the real environment deployment was started in February of 2022. As of March 2023, approximately 600 VMs are in operation on AVS. LIXIL plans to continue promoting the cloud shift by prioritizing out-of-date VMware vSphere virtual infrastructures and to complete transferring thousands of VMs, which are operated by LIXIL, to AVS by March of 2025.

“The ultimate goal for the VCLP project is to establish hybrid system environments. With the focus on public clouds, we hope to utilize advantages of each service to establish the right environments for the right use on private clouds and on-premise. In order to do so, we hope to establish a condition in which we can flexibly switch allocations by unifying the virtual environments using VMware products and utilizing vMotion. (Mr. Nakamaru)

Mr. Kakizaki says that they hope to not only enhance the response capabilities of the Digital Function in preparation for the autonomous operation in the future and aim to accelerate the speed of response in case of failures and resource procurement but also led to cost reduction through internalization. He expresses his request to Microsoft, saying “We will continue establishing multi-cloud environments, so we hope that you would provide attractive services that are different from other companies.” Mr. Nakamaru also says “We hope to switch the deployment locations of virtual environments using VMware products by selecting the right location for the right use, so we hope that you would provide us with attractive features and support that can be differentiated from services by other companies. I think it will lead to the motivations to continue using AVS and Azure,” expressing his desire for further enhanced services.

Mr. Osamu Iwasaki (Senior Vice President Leader / System Development & Operation Digital Function) discusses the review of this project and future outlook.

“This project is an extremely important program to transfer the existing on-premise environments to clouds with mobility based on the multi-cloud strategy. Thanks to the great support of Microsoft, this project proceeded smoothly, leading to solutions of various issues that occur in the cloud shift. We hope to continue reinforcing our cooperation with Microsoft and accelerate system modernization and cloud shift.” (Mr. Iwasaki)

LIXIL promotes flexible and effective cloud service utilization by utilizing the advantages of public cloud/private cloud/on-premise environment with the focus on multi-cloud. We need to continue keeping a close eye on the second and third step projects, which will follow this VCLP project.