Case study: Using OpenBlockS266

System monitoring and administration for nationwide branches

National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO)

The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO) is a Japanese academic institution that conducts comprehensive research on agriculture and the food industry. It studies the production, processing, distribution and consumption of food, with the goal of promoting a healthy diet, generating new business and strengthening the competitiveness of the Japanese food industry.

NARO has nearly 100 branch offices all over Japan, from Hokkaido to Okinawa. All of them are connected by a high-speed wide area network called "MAFFIN", which is operated by the Computer Center for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research. MAFFIN dates back to 1992 in its early stages, as one of Japans most advanced client-server systems.

The task of client-server system administration

OpenBlockS266

The network infrastructure of MAFFIN is administered by the Computer Center, while the administration of the client PCs in each branch is done by the local system administrator.

The system administrators of the branch offices report to the NARO General Information Management Department, Information Management Section. They usually handle around 300 to 400 users, assign IPs to PCs and printers and purchase, upgrade and discard hardware. However, they also have a broad range of other duties which include Web and library administration, so they can't devote a lot of time to managing the clients.

While NARO operates an IT equipment management system which does provide reports on the client PCs, it did not deliver all necessary data. "This was an extreme nuisance", as Mr. Aoki, the Information System Section Chief explains.

"Reports collected by the Computer Center weren't complete, and the IT equipment management system did not report on printers and the like. So we had the problem that our staff could not perform their 100% best."

Introducing the one-stop administration and monitoring solution

As a solution to these deficiencies, the OpenBlockS266 was introduced on the local subnets as a monitoring and administration system.

OpenBlockS266,
deployed in each branch office as report collection terminal

On each OpenBlockS266 a 1 GB CompactFlash card with the Freeware Arpwatch is installed. At a fixed time, the IP address and hostname of all devices connected to the subnet are sent to the administration server. This information is updated by matching it to the data from the IT equipment management system, so a single database can be used.

ArpWatch is installed by loading it on the CompactFlash card, which takes no more than 20 minutes. The card is then inserted into the OpenBlockS, and the system is ready to operate right after LAN cable and power cord are connected. With number of prepared spare servers, a malfunctioning device can quickly and easily replaced. That is to say, there have not been any cases of trouble in the two years since the system was introduced.

Satisfactory results

"Since we do not have full-time administration staff in all branches, we decided it was good to have something that is easy to install and configure even without detailed knowledge. Besides, it is good to have Linux as an OS if you want to do remote administration. These conditions narrowed down the field of products to choose from."

Currently, in branches all over Japan, NARO employs about 90 OpenBlockS266 MicroServers. They have shown satisfactory results in many areas.

"After they were configured in the Information Systems section the devices were sent to each branch. Even though they travelled to far places such as Okinawa and Tanegashima, we have had zero malfunctions."