About Saigon Newport Corporation
Saigon Newport Corporation has become the largest and most professional, modern container port operator in Vietnam, offering a range of port services including cargo handling, logistics, maritime services, rescue and salvage, customs clearance, real estate, office towers, civil and military construction, and multimodal transportation. As the leading container port operator in Vietnam, with a market share of over 85% in the southern region and nearly 50% nationwide, Saigon Newport Corporation (SNP) is committed to providing the best and most convenient port services, logistics solutions, and customer experience.
Project Requirement
Saigon Newport Corporation (SNP) is aiming to enhance service quality and provide comprehensive freight forwarding services to customers with the motto "Choose Saigon Newport - Choose Top-quality Services." Upgrading the IT infrastructure is one of SNP's continuous investment and improvement goals.
The SNP Data Center plays a crucial role in the company's operations as it has the highest port throughput density in Vietnam. Therefore, upgrading the system to meet the growing operational demands is vital. However, the SNP Data Center has encountered the following issues:
The infrastructure supporting the TOPX software is unstable, with frequent hardware errors in the SUN servers and SAN system.
The system operates on a single SAN, leading to hardware instability and capacity limitations.
The system requires multiple high-configured servers to support the plan of integrating new software.
The database runs on SQL 2003 and Windows Server 2003, which have limited support and features.
The current network system operates on a single mechanism without redundancy.
The network security system, using Cisco ASA, fails to meet the increasing demands and higher security standards set by Saigon Newport's leadership.
Prolonged system downtime would have negative implications related to politics and the military. Therefore, finding safe and fast replacement solutions with minimal system downtime is a significant challenge in implementing this project.
Solution
Provide new high-performance and stable servers: 2 SUN SPARC T4-2 servers, with superior performance and features compared to the existing servers. The performance ensures at least 5-7 years of development plans for Saigon Newport.
Deploy new VNX and VNX 5300 SAN systems with fail-over mechanisms and high capacity to meet the future needs of new software. Additionally, a SAN VNX 5100 is placed at the Saigon Newport site, using mirror view and RecoverPoint mechanisms for data backup in case of natural disasters or fires.
Implement VMware virtualization on IBM Flex blade servers. The new server technology, combined with efficient virtualization operations, resolves the complexities previously faced in software development for Saigon Newport.
Utilize Oracle systems on Solaris for more powerful processing. Additionally, the Oracle RAC and Dataguard mechanisms ensure more efficient and secure database operations. With Dataguard, database backup and recovery are no longer constant concerns for system administrators at Saigon Newport.
Provide 2 core switches, operating with VSS mechanisms, to enhance system load capacity and redundancy.
Add 2 Check Point 4800 devices within internal networks to reduce processing loads and isolate and prevent attacks on important VLANs from other VLANs.
Perform system migration from old devices to new ones in 3 phases, with system downtime limited to only 2-3 hours.
Benefits
Through relentless efforts and their extensive experience, the HPT team of experts has successfully completed the project and put Saigon Newport's new system into stable operation, meeting the initial requirements set by the leadership and technical team of Saigon Newport. This has helped optimize the system in the following ways:
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Enhancing system security, stability, and safety: The system now has excellent redundancy capabilities for all devices (servers, SAN, core switch, distributed switch, and firewall) on a new hardware platform with high performance, ensuring safe system operation. Additionally, the use of two firewall systems improves system efficiency and security.
-Improving system management capabilities: With new technologies on a hardware platform manufactured to strict and modern standards, administrators can be more confident in the system's stability. The simplified management interfaces also alleviate the burden on administrators, allowing them more time for research and enhancing their expertise to further improve system management effectiveness.
-Reducing recovery time: With the system running redundancy, powerful hardware, and efficient backup and recovery processes, system recovery is now performed five times faster.
-Scalability: The current hardware enables the system to easily accommodate the expansion of Saigon Newport's applications. Furthermore, with an open design, future system upgrades at Saigon Newport will be quick and secure.