The Ajinomoto Group (Ajinomoto) is a leading global food manufacturer and biotechnology corporation. Founded in 1909, this Japanese company produces and sells umami seasoning AJI-NO-MOTO®, made from monosodium glutamate (MSG). Since its establishment, the company has explored the possibilities of amino acids uncovered through the discovery of umami substances. Ajinomoto has contributed widely to society by focusing on the food, amino science, and pharmaceutical/healthcare sectors.
The Ajinomoto Group is now developing “The Ajinomoto Group Creating Shared Value (ASV) Management,” a proprietary basic management policy that co-creates social value and economic value, based on its corporate purpose of “contributing to the well-being of all human beings, our society, and our planet with ‘AminoScience’.”
As a means of advancing ASV management, the group is transforming its business through the aggressive implementation of digital transformation (DX). As part of its DX efforts, Ajinomoto is building a network that adopts security based on the Zero Trust model.
Ajinomoto began developing the new network in 2018. NRI System Techno, Ltd (NST) - 51% owned by Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. and 49% owned by Ajinomoto Co., Inc - is the affiliate responsible for the building and operating of The Ajinomoto Group’s information systems.
Prior to the development of the new network, Ajinomoto had already been working to develop a remote work environment to tackle workplace reforms.
Ms. Akiko Kanzaki, associate section manager of the IT Infrastructure Systems Department, NST said: “The Ajinomoto Group was looking to implement workplace reforms, to enable telecommuting and satellite office work. However, there were scalability and reliability issues with the existing VPN solution. We considered an upgrade to a Zero Trust network from conventional perimeter security to safeguard against sophisticated cyberattacks.”
"In today’s era of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), it was imperative to beef up network security in order to accelerate The Ajinomoto Group's ASV management and to ensure the smooth operations of the group. To solve this problem, Ajinomoto decided to build a network that incorporates a Zero Trust security model."
– Ms. Yoko Komiya
Manager of the Global IT Services Group,
Digital Transformation Department, Ajinomoto
Adopting Prisma Access Accelerates the Move Towards Zero Trust
Based on Ajinomoto’s policy of transitioning to a Zero Trust network, NST decided to assess the deployment of a secure access service edge (SASE) solution that would accomplish Zero Trust.
Ms. Kanzaki shared, “We conducted a rigorous review of the available solutions, and one of our requirements was cost-effectiveness. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and remote workforce, we faced bandwidth constraints and delays due to the VPN connection, which impacted operations. To alleviate this, we accelerated the migration to a Zero Trust network that would enable employees to use the cloud safely, without having to access the data center.”
Ajinomoto started the process of selecting a solution for the Zero Trust network in September 2021. After conducting rigorous proof of concept (PoC) testing, the company chose to implement Palo Alto Networks cloud-delivered security service edge (SSE) solution, Prisma Access.
Development, configuration, and testing for deployment preceded phased production operations. To simplify operations, centralize visibility and reduce on-going management errors, Ajinomoto also deployed “Panorama” for centralized policy management, “Cortex Data Lake” for log management, as well as a variety of advanced features for Prisma Access.
Ms. Kanzaki summarizes Ajinomoto’s deployment experience, “We deployed Prisma Access in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, so we proceeded carefully to ensure no disruption to the employees and a consistent level of security. We were able to minimize the impact on business when we started the actual operation because we enacted sufficient countermeasures to mitigate the potential risks and issues.”
Consistency in user experience
With Prisma Access, the company is experiencing a variety of deployment benefits. Ms. Kanzaki elaborates, “Prisma Access facilitates ease of use for remote workers accessing the cloud, without requiring them to take any additional steps while providing a consistent user experience. The technical requirements for the essential security features are also fully met, and we anticipate further enhancements and additional features in the future. Prisma Access's cost-effectiveness was also a factor in our decision to adopt it.”
Materializing a convenient and secure remote access environment
“In addition to the asset-light benefit of switching network security from in-house assets to cloud computing, we feel that the deployment of Prisma Access has contributed to the evolution of ASV management through the realization of ‘secure and convenient remote access.’ We have received comments from users that ‘the convenience of using the cloud has increased productivity,’ and we feel that the deployment of Prisma Access has been beneficial from a usability standpoint as well. We are also very satisfied that the system has operated seamlessly, without encountering any significant issues since its deployment,” remarked Ms. Komiya.
NST which is in charge of deployment and operation, has also seen the benefits of Prisma Access. “We are very happy with our choice of Prisma Access because the deployment, configuration, and testing went smoothly, and we were able to deploy the system on schedule. Even after the start of operations, the system has continued to operate flawlessly, and we believe we are one step closer to achieving the Zero Trust network that The Ajinomoto Group is looking for,” shared Ms. Kanzaki.
"Prisma Access facilitates ease of use for remote workers accessing the cloud, without requiring them to take any additional steps while providing a consistent user experience. The technical requirements for the essential security features are also fully met, and we anticipate further enhancements and additional features in the future."
– Ms. Akiko Kanzaki
associate section manager of the IT Infrastructure Systems Department, NST
Once the deployment to The Ajinomoto Group's companies within Japan is complete, deployment will expand to overseas group companies, which are primarily located in Southeast Asia.
Ms. Kanzaki noted: “On this occasion, we mainly deployed the system for telecommuting and remote access from mobile devices. For cloud access from business locations, some cloud services are locally broken out via SD-WAN, but we plan to apply Prisma Access to internet access that is not covered by these services. Additionally, we are planning to use Prisma Access logs as a Zero Trust measure.”
Ajinomoto is one step closer to achieving a Zero Trust network with the introduction of Prisma Access. Palo Alto Networks solutions will undoubtedly continue to make a significant contribution to Ajinomoto’s goal of enhancing network security
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