Ikyu Corporation

Online travel company optimizes their network and increases performance with HPE GreenLake for Networking

  • Customer Profile

    Ikyu Corporation, founded in 1998, provides reservation services that create upscale travel experiences in Japan. Currently a subsidiary of Z Holdings, their website provides the ability to book high-end accommodations, restaurants, and spas. Ikyu.com is one of the major hotel/ryokan booking sites in Japan.
    • Vertical: Hospitality
    • Location: Tokyo, Japan

    Use Case

    Power a hospitality company with faster deployment cycles, quicker technology refreshes, and the flexibility to scale as their needs change, using a subscription-based model to project costs and avoid capital expenditures

    Requirements

    • Rapidly deploy services based on new, remote way of working
    • Optimize, monitor, and manage networking services and track usage and billing
    • Respond quickly to future network changes such as changes in WAN topology

    Outcomes

    • Deployed a flexible network environment without increasing staffing hours
    • Refocused personnel on other business priorities
    • Accelerated business development by enabling faster response

    As a growing online company, Ikyu wanted to address networking performance, security, flexibility, and costs by taking a new, cloud-based approach to their infrastructure. They deployed HPE GreenLake for Networking that provides a wide range of networking options, including wireless LAN environments and SD-WAN, all on a subscription basis.

    IT simplicity and automation

    Ikyu traditionally used a wireless LAN environment at their nationwide offices as the foundation for their day-to-day operations. As network quality issues became more apparent, they continued to trial-and-error efforts to improve communication quality. However, as various network equipment had reached the end of its service life, they did not see much improvement. As the business infrastructure was being converted to cloud-based services, the company decided to upgrade to a new, centralized network environment at their headquarters and enjoy the ability to pay for the overall service in a flexible subscription model instead of as an upfront capital expenditure.

    Cost optimization through subscription

    HPE GreenLake for Networking offers subscription-based financing which allows the overall NaaS product to be billed using a monthly consumption model. The ability to optimize costs was highly attractive to Ikyu as it was difficult for them to undergo the internal capital expenditure process every few years for the large outlay associated with the required network equipment. With HPE GreenLake for Networking, renewals are factored and accounted for in advance, and costs are consistent over the period of use.

    Cloud-based, centralized management, monitoring, and reporting

    It was important to Ikyu that they optimize their entire network while reducing their capital expenditures. They required an integrated solution that would ensure consistent network quality across the company, could be centrally managed and monitored without creating a special environment, and reduced their operational burdens. The company also wanted to maintain their technical know-how in-house. Having an Aruba Customer Success Manager who is responsible for providing proactive lifecycle management, along with the cloud-based Aruba Service Manager (ASM), a purpose-built portal that enables Ikyu to respond quickly to issues and changes, were an added inducement.

    For day-to-day operations, the Aruba Network Operation Center (NOC) monitors the network 24x7x365, and network status can be checked at any time from the NaaS dashboard (ASM). Working with their designated Aruba Customer Success Manager, Ikyu benefits from monthly executive and administrator reports that save time across service and product lifecycles, with timely information on operations, configuration changes, and faster issue resolution.

    High-quality solution lowers overall workload and increases response speeds

    Using HPE GreenLake for Networking, Ikyu implemented a high-quality network that is easy to maintain, and reduction in the operational load has also improved network quality. Problems are resolved at a completely different level of speed, and the ability to minimize the resources required for network operation and management has allowed for those resources to focus on creating new value-added services.

    Ikyu selected HPE GreenLake for Networking due to:

    • the ability to purchase more capacity instead of deploying additional hardware
    • the expanded network management functionality
    • the cloud-based centralized management platform that helps to forecast and resolve problems for their growing workforce.”

    Read more

    Network latency and disconnections were occurring, and we had a lot of requests for improvement from staff in the field. The network wasn't fully optimized, and we were transitioning to new work styles such as telework, and real-time applications such as web conferencing, where network latency and delays had a negative impact on business operations.
    Sawako Araki, Director Information Systems
  • Customer Profile

    Ikyu Corporation, founded in 1998, provides reservation services that create upscale travel experiences in Japan. Currently a subsidiary of Z Holdings, their website provides the ability to book high-end accommodations, restaurants, and spas. Ikyu.com is one of the major hotel/ryokan booking sites in Japan.
    • Vertical: Hospitality
    • Location: Tokyo, Japan

    Use Case

    Power a hospitality company with faster deployment cycles, quicker technology refreshes, and the flexibility to scale as their needs change, using a subscription-based model to project costs and avoid capital expenditures

    Requirements

    • Rapidly deploy services based on new, remote way of working
    • Optimize, monitor, and manage networking services and track usage and billing
    • Respond quickly to future network changes such as changes in WAN topology

    Outcomes

    • Deployed a flexible network environment without increasing staffing hours
    • Refocused personnel on other business priorities
    • Accelerated business development by enabling faster response

    As a growing online company, Ikyu wanted to address networking performance, security, flexibility, and costs by taking a new, cloud-based approach to their infrastructure. They deployed HPE GreenLake for Networking that provides a wide range of networking options, including wireless LAN environments and SD-WAN, all on a subscription basis.

    IT simplicity and automation

    Ikyu traditionally used a wireless LAN environment at their nationwide offices as the foundation for their day-to-day operations. As network quality issues became more apparent, they continued to trial-and-error efforts to improve communication quality. However, as various network equipment had reached the end of its service life, they did not see much improvement. As the business infrastructure was being converted to cloud-based services, the company decided to upgrade to a new, centralized network environment at their headquarters and enjoy the ability to pay for the overall service in a flexible subscription model instead of as an upfront capital expenditure.

    Cost optimization through subscription

    HPE GreenLake for Networking offers subscription-based financing which allows the overall NaaS product to be billed using a monthly consumption model. The ability to optimize costs was highly attractive to Ikyu as it was difficult for them to undergo the internal capital expenditure process every few years for the large outlay associated with the required network equipment. With HPE GreenLake for Networking, renewals are factored and accounted for in advance, and costs are consistent over the period of use.

    Cloud-based, centralized management, monitoring, and reporting

    It was important to Ikyu that they optimize their entire network while reducing their capital expenditures. They required an integrated solution that would ensure consistent network quality across the company, could be centrally managed and monitored without creating a special environment, and reduced their operational burdens. The company also wanted to maintain their technical know-how in-house. Having an Aruba Customer Success Manager who is responsible for providing proactive lifecycle management, along with the cloud-based Aruba Service Manager (ASM), a purpose-built portal that enables Ikyu to respond quickly to issues and changes, were an added inducement.

    For day-to-day operations, the Aruba Network Operation Center (NOC) monitors the network 24x7x365, and network status can be checked at any time from the NaaS dashboard (ASM). Working with their designated Aruba Customer Success Manager, Ikyu benefits from monthly executive and administrator reports that save time across service and product lifecycles, with timely information on operations, configuration changes, and faster issue resolution.

    High-quality solution lowers overall workload and increases response speeds

    Using HPE GreenLake for Networking, Ikyu implemented a high-quality network that is easy to maintain, and reduction in the operational load has also improved network quality. Problems are resolved at a completely different level of speed, and the ability to minimize the resources required for network operation and management has allowed for those resources to focus on creating new value-added services.

    Ikyu selected HPE GreenLake for Networking due to:

    • the ability to purchase more capacity instead of deploying additional hardware
    • the expanded network management functionality
    • the cloud-based centralized management platform that helps to forecast and resolve problems for their growing workforce.”
    Network latency and disconnections were occurring, and we had a lot of requests for improvement from staff in the field. The network wasn't fully optimized, and we were transitioning to new work styles such as telework, and real-time applications such as web conferencing, where network latency and delays had a negative impact on business operations.
    Sawako Araki, Director Information Systems