Communications
Case Study:
Better ID for CJ Internet
24 April 2008
Skyrocketing growth prompted Korean online gaming firm CJ Internet to reassess its authentication solution; the company improved its hardware infrastructure and upgraded to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Active Directory.
CJ Internet, based in Seoul, Korea, is the top-ranking company in the Korean online games industry. The company offers a wide range of Web-based games, including the popular Sudden Attack, through the Net Marble site. As an emerging global games player, CJ Internet is focused on making inroads into the Japanese and US markets.
As Net Marble acquired more users, CJ Internet established an integrated authentication service for its customers to enable them to log on once and gain access to all available games. CJ Internet used the Active Directory service with its Microsoft Windows 2000 Server-based infrastructure and Nets IM from Nets, an IT company specialising in integrated authentication, to achieve this aim. The solution, which in February 2004 supported more than 10 million users, was designed for a capacity of 25 million users. However, as the number of concurrent users grew, the solution could no longer adequately support them. “The integrated authentication system could accommodate concurrent access for 250,000 visitors,” says Young-Goo Hong, assistant manager of the research and development division of CJ Internet. “But when the company recorded more than 250,000 concurrent users, the system needed to be expanded further.”
As an online games company, CJ Internet needed to make access easy for its users for both business management and marketing purposes. This need meant the delivery of an effective and efficient integrated user authentication solution was of great importance.
To accommodate the demands of its user base, which had exceeded 23 million members and 300,000 concurrent users, CJ Internet turned to Microsoft Korea. “As part of a comprehensive design, Microsoft Korea provided us with an analysis of our environment, and based on this analysis, we changed the entire composition of our infrastructure,” says Hong. During the project, CJ Internet transferred its integrated authentication service from the previous three server computers to two, 64-bit based computers.
A key security issue was to find a storage system capable of including user information and company resources. The company changed its storage environment from direct-attached storage to a storage area network solution. In addition, it upgraded to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition for Itanium-based Systems, a 64-bit system with higher performance for memory-intensive workloads. The directory service was also an important part of the infrastructure planning. CJ Internet believed that Active Directory, with its advanced features as a multi-purpose directory service, was an optimal fit.
CJ Internet relies on Nets, an IT firm and a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, to help it strengthen its security infrastructure. “For the past five years Nets has been dedicated to establishing security infrastructures based on Active Directory,” says Byung-Gap Ko, Director at Nets. With the experience that Nets has in establishing single sign-on and enterprise access management solutions, CJ Internet will continue to expand its security features as it grows.
CJ Internet gained four key advantages with its upgrade to the 64-bit Windows Server 2003-based infrastructure and its use of Active Directory. The company’s solution can support users with an authentication environment that offers high availability and improved performance. The company also achieves a more effective use of resources with lower hardware requirements, while laying the groundwork for more advanced Internet access management (IAM) in the future.
By mid 2006, concurrent access to Net Marble exceeded 270,000 users - an increase of 35 per cent in just three years. With its new infrastructure, CJ Internet predicts continued expansion. “CJ Internet enjoys high availability and extensibility with a capability of handling concurrent access for more than 400,000 users,” says Joon-Taek Kwon, head of the Web development division at CJ Internet.
The upgrade to Windows Server 2003 with its increased support for memory-intensive functions has made a real impact on performance. As a result of the upgrade, the memory-addressing capability increased from four gigabytes to 16 terabytes. “One test showed that the central processing unit use rate was 80 to 90 per cent with the 32-bit environment, compared to a rate of only 20 to 30 per cent with the 64-bit environment,” says Hong.
Although CJ Internet had previously set up a single point of management for its server computers, the new infrastructure helps streamline both operation and management even further. The upgrades enabled it to move from three server computers to two.
The work the company has already done will provide a cornerstone for the company to transform its Active Directory infrastructure into an IAM environment in the future, according to Hong. However, in its current stage, CJ Internet has already achieved a solution that not only serves its customers, but also helps the company to effectively pursue its goals in markets worldwide.
This case study first appeared in the June 2007 edition of Microsoft Connections in Communications.