It is impossible to simply renovate a legacy that cannot withstand change. Realized in a limited time! The secret to creating an ecosystem

- Using HULFT and HULFT-WebConnect in combination enables interoperability with AWS -

Tokyu Livable Inc. (hereinafter referred to as "Tokyu Livable"), which primarily handles real estate buying and selling intermediation, as well as rental intermediation and new construction sales, leverages its strengths in a wide range of business areas to support its customers in increasing the value of their real estate. In order to continue to be the company of choice for its customers, the company aims to achieve three industry-leading positions: "No. 1 in customer evaluation," "No. 1 in business competitiveness," and "No. 1 in employee job satisfaction."

The company's systems were facing the challenge of becoming legacy. In particular, the business system, despite being used in daily sales activities, was difficult to use and took a long time to work on. The considerable man-hours required for modifications meant that flexible responses were difficult, and a mountain of issues arose. Therefore, Tokyu Livable decided to completely revamp its business systems and migrate to the cloud before the amendments to the Real Estate Transaction Business Act, which would have a major impact on on-site operations, were made. The construction and migration period was only six months. A project that absolutely could not fail was underway.

Benefits of implementation

It's pointless to go to the trouble of renovating legacy systems now.

Tokyu Livable, a company engaged in a variety of businesses, primarily real estate brokerage, previously developed its core and operational systems from scratch and operated them in an on-premises data center. However, due to aging hardware and legacy systems, the system itself was no longer able to flexibly adapt to today's speed and needs. Compared to modern systems and apps, the interface was outdated and modifications were difficult. Among the operational system features, the most frequently used by salespeople (part of the procedural processing required for real estate brokerage) directly impacts sales efficiency. "The system was difficult to use and slowing down our work, so we were looking for a solution. We discovered that modifications were necessary due to the impact of the Real Estate Transaction Business Act. While modifications would have required considerable effort, we decided it was too late to waste time on an old system, so we decided to take this opportunity to create a new system," explains Mr. Kurabone of the company. "Cloud computing has become commonplace. Building a new server on-premises was no longer an option, so we naturally chose the cloud as our migration destination." They chose Amazon Web Services (AWS) as their cloud of choice. To avoid overlapping legal changes and system migration, they wanted to complete the migration before the legal changes came into effect. This meant that they only had six months left. How to build a new system in such a short time frame presented a new challenge.

New systems on AWS also require data integration with on-premises systems

"In fact, several vendors turned us down, saying it would be difficult to migrate in such a short period of time. In the end, we were able to turn it down to Hitachi Solutions, who are very agile," says Kurabone, highlighting the complexity of the project. The business system was extracted and redeveloped from scratch as a new web application on AWS. By mirroring the data from the on-premises mission-critical system, core system, they aimed to minimize the input required by sales representatives and ensure accuracy and ease of input. "Having to re-enter data even though we use the same data is cumbersome and prone to errors. I believe that data integration between systems is the way to go," says Kurabone. However, the issue of how to data integration between AWS and on-premises arose, but they were so focused on application development that they didn't have time to consider the details of communication methods. Despite the short time constraints, they decided to extend HULFT, which they had been using to transfer data in mission-critical system, core system to communications with the AWS environment. "Based on our past experience with HULFT, we had no concerns about security, and felt confident that we could rely on HULFT. We decided to utilize a proven system and combine the latest version, HULFT 8, with HULFT-WebConnect to achieve interoperability with AWS. There was no need to explain HULFT internally, so we were able to respond quickly," says Kurabone.

Significantly reduced administrative work for sales, successfully improving work efficiency

As a result, the release was successful and went smoothly as planned. After the new system went live, tasks that previously took a long time were completed in an instant, and the efficiency of sales operations was greatly improved. In addition, by converting it to a web application, the system can now flexibly respond to legal changes and other requests.

The new system not only reflects data from mission-critical system, core system, but also returns processed data to mission-critical system, core system. mission-critical system, core system is also linked to a cloud-based sales support system, so it can be said that an environment has been put in place to connect data across multiple systems.

Tokyu Livable will continue its efforts to reform working styles. "I'm not sure if we need to move everything to the cloud. I think it would be good to create a system that stores data from various systems in their own appropriate locations and makes good use of them," says Kurabone.

　

Connection between a closed network environment and an AWS environment

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• The content of this case study is current as of the time of the interview. The content of this case study may change without notice.