Fujitsu adopts Azure Arc for unified management of on-premises and cloud servers

Managing on-premises ESU servers becomes a challenge when shifting to the cloud

Fujitsu is on a mission to build social trust and create a more sustainable world through innovation. Solving global environmental issues, developing a digital society, and improving well-being are three of its core focuses. Under its vision for 2030, it’s rapidly modernizing DX infrastructure while aiming to become a tech company with net-positive digital services. Upon launching this initiative in mid-2021, Fujitsu built DXP Cloud on Azure and began moving systems across the company to the new platform.

“The aggregation is still ongoing, but we can’t migrate all systems to the cloud,” says Shinichi Ejiri, Senior Director of Platform Transformation Division. In 2015, Fujitsu began consolidating internal servers, which had been virtualized since 2008, on an internal cloud, while keeping some on-premises.

These on-premises servers will eventually be retired and shut down. However, the company could not treat servers running Windows Server 2012 in a hands-off manner.

Mainstream support for Windows Server 2012 ended in October 2018 and extended support ended five years later. Any remaining server groups running this version required the Microsoft Extended Security Update (ESU) program. ESU provides critical security information and updates for up to three years after extended support ends.

“134 virtual machines in our internal cloud were no longer supported, and we had to consider what would happen to them after October 2023,” says Ejiri. Microsoft stepped in and made an undeniable proposal.

Azure Arc applies ongoing security updates, simplifies management, and reduces costs with monthly fees

Microsoft made its proposal in September 2023, suggesting that Fujitsu use Azure Arc to manage the operating systems of servers requiring ESU. Azure Arc provides a consistent management platform across multi-cloud and on-premises environments, enabling centralized manage of on-premises servers from Azure. Once enrolled on Azure Arc, servers running Windows Server 2012 beyond its extended support period became eligible for ESU.

This allows enterprises to use Windows Server 2012 beyond October 2023. Fujitsu agreed to Microsoft’s proposal. In January 2024, the company deployed Azure Arc agents on the servers for a technical trial. The solution went live in June 2024, with 134 servers retired by June 2025.

According to Ejiri, Azure Arc offered two additional major benefits. 

First, Azure Arc simplified the operation of on-premises systems. Saori Sakai, Manager of Platform Transformation Division, explains, “Previously, we managed infrastructure and licenses separately. To audit licenses, Infrastructure Management team had to send information to License Management team. Azure Arc unified the work. In addition, all the information is now visible on Azure. We no longer need to constantly check the date that servers under support contracts are stopping.”

The second benefit is lower licensing costs by switching from yearly to monthly payments. Fujitsu is gradually decommissioned servers with ESU, so removing them from monthly support coverage significantly lowers licensing fees. Changing to this payment structure has already saved Fujitsu 40% on annual licensing fees.

Fujitsu has also embraced the Microsoft Cloud Acceleration Factory (CAF), a cloud migration assistance service. CAF helped Fujitsu set policies when deploying Azure Arc, provided base scripts to mass deploy agents efficiently, and delivered swift assistance for unexpected errors.

“Our team members were on-premises specialists using Azure for the first time,” says Sakai. “Thanks to CAF, we were able to successfully deploy Azure Arc as planned.”

Fujitsu Europe leverages Azure Arc for better governance and security

While Azure Arc was adopted to extend security updates for decommissioned servers, Fujitsu Europe found more ways to leverage its benefits. Namely, enhancing the governance and security of on-premises systems. 

“We wanted better security and governance, so we trialed Microsoft Defender for Servers and deployed Azure Arc to run it,” says Niclas Steinbrech, Cloud & Security Solution Architect of Fujitsu Technology Solutions GmbH. The company deployed Azure Arc agents and Defender for Servers on 18 virtual machines, conducting extensive simulations of automated attacks and collecting performance data.

“Azure Arc was very performant, even when running alongside Defender for Servers,” Steinbrech continues. “The performance was better than our previous antivirus solution. The speed and simplicity of deployment were also outstanding. It took under five minutes per server to deploy and connect agents, with no user interaction required. An HTTPS connection through a proxy was enough—no additional firewall configuration was needed.”

The company also enjoyed the following operational advantages.

Enabling Defender for Servers is as simple as toggling a switch on the Azure portal. With Azure Arc, all 18 servers can be instantly managed in a single, centralized view, where administrators can check their status, updates, and security just like native Azure resources. Furthermore, Defender extensions and future rule base updates are automatically managed through Azure Arc, eliminating the need for separate update management.

Fujitsu also appreciates the exceptional governance and security capabilities. Administrators use Azure Resource Manager to control all resources connected to Azure Arc, enabling application of security standards via Azure Policy and use of the Defender for Cloud regulatory compliance dashboard without requiring any additional tools.

Azure Arc as a platform for unified management of cloud and on-premises servers

In addition to Defender for Servers, Fujitsu Europe will deploy Azure Arc for three key purposes based on the results of the trial.

The first is patch management. The organization is using the on-premises Windows Server Update Service now, but is investigating a full migration to Azure Arc. This will ease maintenance work and improve the consistency and security of patches.

The second use is regulatory compliance reporting. Defender for Cloud’s dashboard enables Fujitsu to view and manage the compliance status of servers connected via Arc, streamlining compliance for ISO 27001, GDPR, and other regulations.

The third use is inventory and change tracking management. With a configuration management database for the entire hybrid environment, the system can continuously find assets, track changes, and enforce Azure Policy guest configurations, detecting and automatically fixing breaches.

“These initiatives provide a single pane of glass to monitor and control all systems under a consistent policy,” Steinbrech says. He expects dramatically better operational automation, visibility, and consistency, which will streamline regulatory compliance and strengthen security.

Fujitsu’s Japan division is conducting a similar investigation. Koji Kanemitsu, a Platform Transformation Division Senior Manager, explains, “Azure Arc integrates management of on-premises servers into Azure and streamlines operations. For example, we can classify servers and apply policies with tags. The platform makes it easier to leverage the latest technology available in Azure. Defender for Cloud and Copilot in Azure make DevSecOps and AIOps even easier.”

Ejiri also has some thoughts on the future: “Aggregation to DXP Cloud was in full swing by 2022, and we had amassed a lot of Azure knowledge. Azure Arc is the key to applying this knowledge to on-premises systems and cutting workloads. It will bridge our thousands of on-premises servers with DXP Cloud and enable us to more easily manage the operations of our hybrid environment.”

As we can see, Fujitsu is leveraging the benefits of Azure Arc to streamline the way it manages infrastructure. The company provides an exemplary case study for organizations struggling to manage a hybrid environment.