Building a Resilient Network Hub for APAC in Japan

How a global investment management firm strengthened its Tokyo IT infrastructure with geographic redundancy, BGP routing, and direct access to English-speaking network experts.

Solutions featured in this case study

High-Performance Internet

Redundant Internet

Why the firm needed a more resilient Internet environment in Tokyo

For many years, the firm’s Hong Kong site served as its primary network hub in APAC. However, the firm sought to enhance resiliency across its regional infrastructure and reduce reliance on a single location, so it began expanding the role of its Tokyo environment as a high-availability site within APAC.

At the same time, the role of Internet connectivity was changing. As file services, telephony systems, and other business applications increasingly moved to the cloud, Internet connectivity became a critical component of daily operations and business continuity in Tokyo.

The firm's network team needed more than a standard Internet connection. The project required use of their provider-independent IP address space, BGP routing, and genuinely resilient DIA connectivity. Equally important was the ability for overseas network engineers to communicate directly with the ISP without language barriers or translation delays.

Finding a provider that could meet both the technical and operational requirements proved challenging.

“It was almost impossible to find a company that could meet our requirements, together with English-language capability and flexibility.”
—Head of Japan Support, Core Technology

What the firm needed from an Internet provider:

• BGP routing of customer-owned IP address space

  Use the firm’s existing public IP address range and public ASN in Japan.

• Genuine network redundancy

  Avoid two circuits that depend on the same ASN or backbone.

• Direct English communication

  Ability for overseas engineers to discuss technical issues without translation delays.

• Pre-deployment validation

  Review latency, routes, and cloud connectivity before implementation.

Checking routes and latency before implementation

Meeting the requirements on paper was not enough. The firm wanted to understand how the network would perform before making a decision.

The network team shared the destinations that mattered most to the business and requested route and latency information. PacketFabric provided traceroute results and latency measurements, allowing the team to review expected routes and performance before committing to the service.
The evaluation also covered cloud connectivity, upstream networks and resilience.

Direct English communication was equally important during the evaluation. Other providers the firm considered needed to relay questions to a separate translation department—this meant getting answers took time, and concerned the firm about response times in more urgent situations like a network outage. With PacketFabric, overseas network engineers could communicate directly with specialists in English.

“Whenever we made an inquiry, we received very detailed technical answers very quickly. That was quite impressive.”
— Head of Japan Support, Core Technology

Geographic and AS-level redundancy across Tokyo and Osaka

The final network configuration delivers both geographic and AS-level redundancy. The primary circuit connects to PacketFabric's Tokyo network, while the backup circuit connects to PacketFabric’s Osaka network—two separate backbones with distinct ASNs.

To ensure diversity in the circuits and streamline troubleshooting, the firm chose to consolidate both connections with a single provider.

Stable operations and a stronger foundation for APAC

Since going live, the firm has not needed to raise a support case. Early testing of the new Tokyo connection also showed a clear improvement for Internet traffic between Hong Kong and Japan—a reduction in latency of over 90%.

Tokyo now works as a high-availability site for the region, ready to take over if the firm's primary regional infrastructure has a serious problem. As more of its daily work moves to cloud-based services, that matters more.

“It gives us peace of mind that we did not have in APAC before.”
— Head of Technology, APAC

The firm also values the detailed notifications it receives about maintenance, outages and other network events. The number of emails was surprising at first, but after working with providers that were not proactive and slow to respond to incidents, the team now appreciates the regular updates.

"Just, how pleased we are with the decision, I think. PacketFabric is the best fit; it's the correct decision.’’
— Head of Technology, APAC

Need resilient, BGP-capable Internet connectivity in Japan?

PacketFabric helps global companies meet demanding requirements for BGP routing, redundancy, cloud connectivity and English-language technical support.

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