ArcCyber Helps ransform Cyberspace in Asia/Pacific with Internet Services to Enterprises

Situation Analysis
Based in Thailand,ArcCyber is a service provider of comprehensive solutions for businesses looking to utilize the latest technology without the accompanying costs and risks.The company's networked ebusiness infrastructure saves businesses up-front investment costs and allows companies to concentrate on their core businesses rather than spending time and costs developing and maintaining an Internet network infrastructure.

The company is a joint venture between NTT Communications, Shin Corporation, and Saha Phatana Inter-Holding Public Company Limited. ArcCyber delivers three types of services to its customers: Internet datacenter (IDC), Internet service provider (ISP),and application service provider (ASP). ArcCyber's IDC provides a full range of networking services, including collocation, application hosting, and facility management. ArcCyber's IDC network is designed to deliver maximum reliability and security.

EBusiness Challenges And Objectives
In 1999,the IDC and ISP market in Asia/Pacific was highly fragmented and competitive.ArcCyber thus faced a number of challenges:

• Demand for higher-quality services. Customers were looking for the fastest service at the lowest price. ArcCyber's infrastructure was outdated, and the company did not provide high-speed access.
• Highly competitive market. In 1999,the Communication Authority of Thailand provided licenses to international companies to deliver Internet services in Thailand. At the time, there were already 18 ISPs in the country.
• Fragmented,price-sensitive customers. Most Internet users in Thailand were individuals using the Web for entertainment.They were not brand loyal and demanded service at the lowest possible price. Thus,there was little opportunity for ISPs to increase profits by offering value-added services to individual customers without targeting the enterprise.
• Increased international demand. Companies were demanding high-speed communications from Bangkok to Japan and beyond. Although the demand for international communications was increasing, ArcCyber's network infra-structure was not robust enough to service multinational corporations.

In response to these challenges, ArcCyber decided to differentiate itself from its competition by targeting the enterprise market. Enterprise customers would pay higher prices with the demand for higher-value services; the enterprise market promised to be more profitable than that of the individual consumer. However, for ArcCyber to pursue this new market opportunity, it needed to upgrade its systems and infrastructure, as the quality-of-service requirements for this new customer base were much higher.

Action Plan And Decision Process
In early 2000,ArcCyber acquired Dataline Thai, a small ISP operating under the Communication Authority of Thailand license. Following the acquisition, ArcCyber embarked on its strategy to develop a carrier-grade network infra-structure to support large,multinational enterprises.In the initial stage, it planned to provide basic services,including IP,ISP,Web access,colocation, and hosting services,with future plans to offer managed services and deploy ASP services.

With the intent of offering service-level agreements (SLAs)in excess of 99.5%, ArcCyber required a robust,high-performance network infrastructure. The company pinpointed three specific areas of focus:

• Equipment and products
• Personnel
• Operational processes

ArcCyber immediately looked to Sun, which it viewed as the leader in the Internet space in the Asia/Pacific region. In early 2000,Sun Professional Services provided ArcCyber with a proposal detailing Sun's ability to deliver best-of-breed solutions in the service provider space. The proposal included an overview of Sun's strengths in architecture design,datacenter operations, and personnel skill assessments and training.

According to ArcCyber,the proposal was key in the solidification of its decision to work with Sun. Mr.Anukrom Punyashthiti, network manager for ArcCyber, explains, "We elected to build our infrastructure on the Sun server and storage platform simply because it is the most robust in the market. But an important factor in selecting Sun was the company's skilled, dedicated consultants, along with a proven architectural and development methodology � the SunTone Architecture Methodology. In the end, we found that Sun offered a best-of-breed solution that was unmatched in the marketplace. "Because many of its potential customers wanted assurances that its infrastructure would meet SLAs, ArcCyber found the SunTone certification of key value � a stamp of approval that would attract enterprises as customers.

Solution Profile And Implementation Strategy
In early 2000, ArcCyber initiated work with Sun Professional Services on the architecture design and implementation build for its new carrier-grade ISP infra-structure.The architecture design reflects quality-of-service requirements such as security, scalability, reliability, and high availability. It also reflects a services-driven network encompassing various services for essaging, news, Web and Web hosting,caching,and user registration.

Architecture Design
ArcCyber's business requirements necessitated the development of a robust, high-performance platform infrastructure, including an application framework that would deliver sophisticated functionality. Among these requirements was inte-gration with proprietary applications and legacy back-end systems.Over a peri-od of two months in the spring of 2000,Sun Professional Services � working with the IT project team from ArcCyber � conducted an architecture assess-ment that identified various quality-of-service requirements based on business needs,which included:

• An open,extensible platform infrastructure that would allow the use of software from multiple vendors and speed application development by facilitating the reuse of architecture design and business logic
• An underlying server and storage infrastructure for powering reliable, scalable, highly available services, including the ability to meet quality-of- service requirements for more than 50,000 enterprise customers
• Identification of critical elements of architecture design and datacenter oper-ations to help ensure a highly secure environment,including firewall detection,authentication,and security processes
• Service level agreements for sustaining 99.5%availability or greater

Implementation And Process
After solidifying the architecture, ArcCyber and Sun embarked on building the network infrastructure in June 2000.Although the infrastructure build was completed and services were ready for launch after seven months, the actual launch of services to enterprise customers was delayed by three months until April 2001.ArcCyber was required by its parent company, NTT, to relocate and consolidate its datacenter to NTT headquarters in Bangkok to help maintain consistent operations and control. Despite the change in plan,Sun was able to quickly respond to ArcCyber's evolving requirements. According to Mr .Pakorn Nandhasri,system engineer manager at ArcCyber,"Sun Professional Services played a key role in configuring the layout of the new datacenter and integrating ArcCyber systems with the existing NTT datacenter."

Once the datacenter relocation was complete, ArcCyber began rolling out the various Internet services.In April 2001,the company launched messaging, news,Web and Web hosting,caching,and user registration services and,in July 2001, launched its ISP and ASP services
(see Figure 1).

Methodology Architecture And Implementation
Sun consultants used the SunTone Architecture Methodology to design a services-driven network as well as instill development best practices. The services-driven network provides ArcCyber with an architecture framework for delivering multiple, disparate services in an environment that is designed for optimal performance and security.It also gives the company the ability to easily and quickly integrate new services as well as plug and play any number of products � Sun as well as third party.Sun consultants drew on the SunTone Architecture Methodology for architecture design and development processes. The sequential, iterative development process helped ArcCyber to speed time to market while concurrently reducing risks and heightening overall quality. Encompassing inception,elaboration, construction, and transition phases ,the development process and best practices include the following characteristics:

• Use case focused. Using functional case scenarios,Sun and ArcCyber helped ensure end-to-end functionality of the services to be delivered.
• Architecture centric. Architecture is defined and tested before development begins. This reduces the risk of technical issues that might arise later and require reengineering.
• Iterative and incremental. Using a phased approach to development means that testing occurs often and regularly, thus helping to ensure that issues are detected early and the final release provides all the functionality originally intended.
• Integration of systemic qualities. Focus on quality-of-service require-ments,such as availability, reliability, scalability, and security, helps to ensure that the infrastructure and application framework meet identified business drivers.
• Patterns based. The process identifies architecture design patterns to reduce development cycles via the reuse of segments of business logic and coding, thereby helping to speed time to market.

Once Sun completed the architecture design,Sun consultants relied on processes and best practices to accelerate the implementation process in preparation for the datacenter relocation. At that time, ArcCyber was required to integrate its new network infrastructure with other systems in a new building at NTT head-quarters. According to Mr.Nuttachai Veerakul, senior IT manager at ArcCyber, "Sun Professional Services was extremely helpful in integrating the ArcCyber and NTT datacenters. They were able to easily work with other vendors' systems and applications, thus helping us to complete the datacenter relocation in a time frame shorter than initially projected."

Solution Architecture And Infrastructure
ArcCyber's services-driven network is powered by 15 Sun Enterprise servers running the Solaris 8 and 7 Operating Environments.The various services being delivered include (1) directory and authentication; (2) mail/messaging; (3) news; (4) Web access and hosting; and (5) Web caching and a user registration database. Customers can access each of the services through one of five points of delivery (PODs). The open,extensible architecture design allows the near seamless plug-and-play of new services and products,thereby giving ArcCyber the flexibility to augment its service offerings and tap additional revenue channels (see Figure 2) without overhauling its application framework or platform infrastructure.

Customers access the services via Internet connections.A firewall layer "guards" the various services and data. For security, ArcCyber implemented SunScreen � Secure Net 3.1 and Check Point Firewall 1.0.SunScreen is an enterprise firewall system designed for access control,authentication, and network data encryption. It consists of a rules-based, dynamic packet-filtering engine for network-access control as well as an encryption and authentication engine that enables companies to create secure virtual private network (VPN) gateways by integrating public key encryption technology.

• Directory POD. The directory POD includes Sun ONE Directory Server and Radius Authentication Server.Radius Authentication Server provides ArcCyber with greater flexibility in managing and servicing its enterprise customers by enabling users to access all of the services through a single point of entry with a single log-on.Sun ONE Directory Server allows ArcCyber to manage large volumes of transactions and information hosted on thousands of domains and further facilitates the personalization and customization of mail and NetNews services,including membership log-in and customization of content via streaming media, news,ads,and more. The Sun ONE Directory Server and Radius Authentication Server each run on two Sun Enterprise 220R servers running the Solaris 8 Operating Environment
• Mail/messaging POD. ArcCyber's mail service is based on the WebEdge messaging platform powered by a Sun Enterprise 3500 server and two Sun Enterprise 220R servers,all running the Solaris 7 Operating Environment. The Sun Enterprise 3500 server is designed for high vertical scalability, allowing ArcCyber to add new users quickly and easily. Secure customer data is stored in a network storage system residing on a Sun StorEdge D1000 disk array for backup and restore.
• NetNews POD. NetNews is a subscription news service accessed through D-News. The NetNews POD is powered by one Sun Enterprise 220R server running the Solaris 8 Operating Environment.
• Web access and hosting POD. Web hosting services are powered by Apache Web Server residing on two Sun Enterprise 220R servers running the Solaris 8 Operating Environment.Two Sun StorEdge disk arrays provide separate storage for Web hosting services.

• Web caching and a user registration database POD. The Web caching and user registration database provides collocation of customers' customized content. An Oracle8i database houses the enterprise and user data and content for each customer. The Web caching service resides on one Sun Enterprise 220R server running the Solaris 8 Operating Environment. Secure customer data is stored in a network attached storage (NAS) environment consisting of a Sun StorEdge disk array.

To better manage its application environment and facilitate integration, ArcCyber is using Sun � Management Center 3.0 for the Solaris Operating Environment � Sun's system management application used to monitor and ensure availability and reliability of applications and systems. "Sun Management Center allows us to proactively manage and monitor all of our network systems, including the Sun Enterprise servers and Sun StorEdge disk arrays,"notes Veerakul. "It provides a single access point for managing customer-facing Internet services, thereby contributing to our ability to manage aggressive service-level agreements in an efficient manner."

Result And Business Benefits
ArcCyber,with the help of Sun,is poised to grab a significant share of the enterprise Internet services market in the Asia/Pacific region.It is now the largest ISP in Thailand,with the goal of serving 50,000 companies equating to over 1 million end users by yearend. Some of the results and business benefits that ArcCyber is achieving include (see Figures 3 and 4):

• Customer satisfaction and loyalty. The open, services-driven network architecture allows ArcCyber to add and integrate new services as needed.
• Reliability and availability. Sun Professional Services helped ArcCyber instill operational best practices in the management of its datacenter to sustain high availability, scalability, security, and reliability, including meeting or exceeding SLAs of 99.5% or more.
• New revenue channel. During its first five months of offering enterprise Internet services, ArcCyber was able to realize $300,000 in new incremental revenue,with the projection that this number will grow by more than 600% to over $2 million by yearend.
• Scalability. The new application framework and platform infrastructure give ArcCyber a solid foundation on which to rapidly grow its business, with the projection of more than 50,000 enterprise customers by yearend, consisting of 1 million end users.
• Enhanced profitability. By providing higher-margin,high-value services to enterprises, ArcCyber has been able to differentiate itself from competitors while earning greater profit.
• Time to market. With the help of Sun Professional Services,ArcCyber completed an architectural design in two months and deployed and implemented the network infrastructure in four months. Despite the delay caused by the datacenter relocation to NTT headquarters,the complete project was delivered in less than six months,improving time to market by 25%. Sun Educatonal Services at ArcCyber
• Time to market. With the help of Sun Professional Services,ArcCyber completed an architectural design in two months and deployed and implemented the network infrastructure in four months. Despite the delay caused by the datacenter relocation to NTT headquarters,the complete project was delivered in less than six months, improving time to market by 25%.

Future Involvment
With the infrastructure in place for delivering Internet services to large enterprises, ArcCyber intends to launch an ASP service through which customers may access packaged applications,including collaborative applications and enterprise resource planning (ERP) packages. Although the business plan is not yet finalized, ArcCyber hopes to launch the service in 2002 and will likely use Sun servers and storage and engage the assistance of Sun Professional Services in its design and implementation.

ArcCyber also plans to apply for SunTone certification in 2002 to provide customers with confidence in their new ISP services. SunTone certification helps ensure customers of the ability of the service provider to deliver high availability, scalability,and reliability as well as drive brand value with customers.Part of this process will entail the delivery of a SunReady[SM] Availability Assessment for SunTone Certification, with Sun Professional Services and support from Sun Support Services and Sun Educational Services.

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