[IDCF Cloud Construction, Operation and Maintenance] Daily Sports Online / Kobe Shimbun NEXT | Kobe Shimbun

This time, we spoke with Mr. Nakajima of Kobe Shimbun Co., Ltd. about his usage and impressions of our cloud construction, operation and maintenance services

Tell us about your business

Mr. Nakashima: As a newspaper company, our role is to deliver information to society through the power of articles, photographs, and in other words, "words." However, with the changing times, it has become somewhat difficult to make a sufficient presence in society through the newspaper itself. That is why Kobe Shimbun believes that even though we are a local newspaper, we must aim to disseminate information nationwide. We have identified strengthening our online communication capabilities as a challenge, and in order to focus not only on the print version but also on the web, we established the Digital Promotion Bureau.

The main job of the digital department is to post content such as articles, photos, and videos on the websites we operate, "Daily Sports Online" and "Kobe Shimbun NEXT." In addition to that, we provide information to major portal sites so that the information reaches more people

The newspaper industry is often referred to as a "declining industry" or "old media," but I believe it still has a lot to do for society

At Kobe Shimbun, we value the role of journalism in resolving local issues and revitalizing local communities. With Daily Sports, we aim to deliver entertaining information to people all over the country, and with Daily Sports online, in addition to delivering messages to people all over Japan, we have recently been approaching people in English-speaking countries to see if we can do something for them

Tomoyuki Nakajima, Deputy Director of Web Engineering, Digital Promotion Department, Kobe Shimbun Co., Ltd

Please tell us the background to the introduction of this service

Mr. Nakashima: My previous company decided to withdraw from server operation and maintenance, and it was difficult for us to handle 24/7/365 operation and maintenance on our own. So we were looking for a new company that could handle operation and maintenance, and that's how we learned about Beyond through a referral.

Of course, the company's policy was to get competitive quotes, so we considered comparing with another company

We were looking for a company that could not only handle operation and maintenance after a major failure has taken our website down, but also have a system in place to prevent problems before they actually occur. We were attracted to Beyond because they are not only available for contact 24 hours a day, but also able to detect and respond to abnormalities before they develop into major problems

What was the deciding factor that ultimately led you to choose our company?

Mr. Nakashima: When comparing our offerings with other companies, we used indicators such as "technical expertise in servers," "response speed in the event of a problem," "ability to solve problems," and "whether it matches our company culture."

The biggest deciding factor in ultimately choosing Beyond was their "speed of response." This was something I considered very important, and they met my expectations, making me feel that they were trustworthy.

We are also pleased that they "match our company culture." This is something we didn't know until we actually worked together, but perhaps because they are both based in Osaka, in the Kansai region, we are geographically close, which makes communication easy and helps

Another thing we appreciate about Beyond is theirtagline, "Leave everything about your servers to us," which. As we lack expertise in servers, this statement, though it may sound exaggerated, deeply impressed us. We feel this phrase reflects Beyond's confidence and is proof that they have the infrastructure in place to deliver on that promise. Our team members also saw this tagline and concluded, "If they can say that with such conviction, let's give them a go."

Tell us about the services you use

Mr. Nakashima: Currently, we are using your services for 24-hour server operation and maintenance. Also, at the time, CentOS support was about to expire, so we asked you to handle everything from server design and construction, including the OS migration.

Additionally, the company that had previously handled maintenance had made various settings on the server side, which had resulted in a fairly black boxed and extremely complicated system

Because of this, we had Beyond take a considerable amount of time to deal with the transition. There were many more black-boxed aspects than we had expected, so it took a considerable amount of time to unravel and deal with them, but in the end we were able to complete the transition smoothly, which was a great help

What specifically is it that is helpful to you?

Mr. Nakashima: Maintenance is definitely the most helpful thing for us. What worries us about maintenance is that we have few means to deal with sudden spikes in access.

However, we are now able to promptly take pre-determined measures, such as blocking IP addresses in the event of unauthorized access and increasing server capacity depending on the access situation

It's difficult for us to be on-hand 24 hours a day, so this is a great help. To be honest, nighttime support tends to be a secondary priority, but we take pride in being a newspaper company, and we believe it's only natural to keep our website available 24 hours a day

In terms of national recognition, I think "Daily Sports Online" is a big factor. It has grown into a site that generates approximately 200 million to 300 million page views per month. In addition, by implementing CDN, we have been able to maintain smooth browsing even during peak traffic

"Kobe Shimbun NEXT" operates a flat-rate membership site. Monthly page views reach approximately 50 million at its peak, averaging 10 to 20 million, which I believe is a respectable number for a local newspaper that has shifted to a subscription-based approach. While there are likely to be technical challenges, I hope to work together with you to see to what extent we can utilize the technology we have cultivated at "Daily Sports Online" for "Kobe Shimbun NEXT."

Please let me know if there are any points you would like to make

Mr. Nakashima: We have a fair number of technical staff, which is unusual for a local newspaper, but we currently lack specialists in server management and infrastructure. Of course, we are studying infrastructure, but the reality is that it's not enough.

In that respect, I believe Beyond is a group of specialists in that field, so I think it was a great decision to ask them for help as we were able to receive a variety of advice as we worked together

For us,Beyond is not just an external contractor, but a partner company that works alongside us. It's reassuring to know that they're willing to work with us to find solutions when problems arise.

They are flexible in responding to even minor concerns and questions that are probably not important enough to be discussed as part of work, which creates an atmosphere where we feel comfortable discussing various things with them. Personally, I think this is why they fit in with our organizational culture

Please tell us your impressions of using our service

Mr. Nakashima: I've been using your service for about five years now,the feeling that we're working together. I personally have a strong desire to "work together, sweat together, and achieve something," and I feel that Beyond is doing just that.

Of course, the most important thing about maintaining a server is that it operates stably without any issues, so we discussed how we should design it and worked together to create it, which has allowed us to achieve stable operation recently

What can be expected of us in the future?

Mr. Nakashima: The world of technology is constantly advancing, and as engineers, we are always learning. However, the evolution of AI in recent years has been particularly remarkable, with new services appearing every three months, making it difficult to keep up. In that respect, I think Beyond is doing a great job of keeping up with the latest information.

Additionally, there has been a lot of news recently about ransomware and other security issues. While we are also focusing on security measures, Beyond is a group of specialists with even higher levels of expertise than we are, and we feel that we have no choice but to rely on them in this area

As for my hopes for the future, as technology advances and new services and technologies emerge one after another, I believe there will be areas that we are unable to fully utilize. I would be delighted if Beyond could incorporate these new technologies and feed them back into the projects we are working on, leading to the creation of even better products and making them even better. I hope that we can continue to move forward together in this way as technical partners

Please tell us about your future business development plans

Mr. Nakashima: While our goal of delivering a lot of information to everyone remains unchanged, I believe we need to create new revenue models beyond the current advertising model of Daily Sports and the subscription model of Kobe Shimbun. We have some ongoing initiatives, such as e-commerce, and we plan to continue developing various other projects in the future.

Additionally, as a newspaper company, we believe that strengthening content and local communities are essential, so we are considering creating communities and producing something specific to those communities. We believe that businesses targeting seniors have a high affinity with newspapers, but we would like to go beyond that and consider new initiatives that utilize digital technology for all generations

-Thank you for your valuable story!

Kobe Port as seen from the Kobe Shimbun building