Dell Technologies Modernizes DOCOMO’s Mission-Critical Private Cloud

• DOCOMO simplified its internal IT private cloud operations by adopting a consumption-based model supported by Dell PowerMax, Dell PowerStore, Dell APEX Subscriptions and Dell Managed Services
• Seven-year infrastructure costs projected to decline by more than 50 percent, with time spent on infrastructure operations reduced by approximately 40 percent

CHIYODA-KU - Dell Technologies announced that NTT DOCOMO, INC. has modernized their internal IT private cloud powering its business support system, using Dell PowerStore, Dell PowerMax, Dell APEX Subscriptions and Dell Managed Services. The move is expected to cut seven-year infrastructure costs by more than 50 percent while cutting time spent on infrastructure operations by roughly 40 percent, according to the official website of Dell. 

Why it matters

As one of Japan's leading telecommunications carriers, DOCOMO serves more than 90-million people across Japan and its business reaches well beyond mobile services. Its Smart Life platform delivers financial services, healthcare, entertainment and its customer loyalty program to 100-million users. The system’s workloads demand continuous availability and consistent performance.

Their internal IT private cloud supporting this environment, had grown over the years to consolidate infrastructure across NTT DOCOMO group. As usage climbed, operational complexity increased. DOCOMO used this moment to evaluate not just what to replace, but how infrastructure should be acquired, operated and scaled going forward. A seven-year cost and operational analysis made it clear that a consumption-based model paired with managed operations was the best long-term approach.

A storage foundation built for mission-critical scale

DOCOMO chose Dell PowerStore and Dell PowerMax as the storage foundation for their performance, scale, availability and data efficiency. PowerMax delivered compression and deduplication ratios of 6:1 to 8:1 in production, shrinking physical storage footprint and cutting rack space and power use by nearly 50 percent. iiCost per gigabyte also declined by approximately half compared to the previous environment. iii

To match infrastructure capacity to real demand, DOCOMO adopted Dell APEX Subscriptions as its procurement model. Dell APEX reduces upfront investment and simplifies long-term capacity planning, so DOCOMO can scale storage resources as its data volumes and transaction loads grow.

Managed services streamline operations and accelerate innovation

DOCOMO uses Dell Managed Services to standardize operational processes, improve system health visibility and offload routine infrastructure tasks across the environment. Maintenance coordination time has fallen by more than three hours per instance. iv Overall infrastructure operations workload and management time fell by approximately 40 percent, vallowing DOCOMO's teams to redirect capacity toward initiatives supporting Smart Life and AI-driven service development.

Dell is migrating DOCOMO to its new Dell PowerMax and Dell PowerStore-based core infrastructure in phases, with full completion expected by the end of 2026. Based on a seven-year cost comparison, the combined platform, APEX consumption model and Dell Managed Services are projected to reduce long-term infrastructure costs by more than 50 percent.

Perspectives

“Our platform is the backbone of the systems that serve tens of millions of customers every day, so modernizing it required more than a hardware refresh,” said Kosuke Yamamoto, manager, Information Systems Department, NTT DOCOMO. "Working with Dell Technologies, we shifted to a consumption-based model and brought in managed operations — changes that have meaningfully reduced costs and freed our teams to focus on building the next generation of Smart Life services.”

“DOCOMO didn't just modernize their storage, they rethought how to acquire and run infrastructure for the next decade,” said Varun Chhabra, senior vice president, Marketing, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies. “Dell PowerStore and Dell PowerMax deliver the performance its business support system demands. Pairing that with Dell APEX Subscriptions and Managed Services unlocked more than 50% in seven-year savings and freed their teams to focus on work that has a meaningful impact on their business.”