IIJ Launches IIJ GIO BigData Labo

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TOKYO-June 24, 2013-Internet Initiative Japan Inc. (IIJ, NASDAQ: IIJI, TSE1: 3774), one of Japan's leading Internet access and comprehensive network solutions providers, today announced the immediate release of the latest addition to the IIJ GIO Service lineup, the IIJ GIO BigData Labo ("the Solution"), a new cloud-based solution that facilitates start-up procedures for effective big data usage.

For the business world, big data usage represents a crucial element in boosting overall competitiveness. More and more companies are now exploring concrete, practical approaches to making the most of big data. However, an independent questionnaire organized by IIJ showed that there are many obstacles associated with big data: For instance, companies are concerned about the costs of creating data processing infrastructures, the potential difficulties associated with learning data processing technology, and their lack of data usage expertise.

Aiming to bring down some of the barriers standing in the way of effective big data usage and to lay the groundwork for full-fledged implementation, the Solution provides customers with support for quick, streamlined start-ups. To ensure that customers can appreciate the benefits of big data usage at a minimal investment, the Solution provides a trial environment together with several technical support features. The trial environment, provided on the IIJ GIO Service cloud infrastructure, lets customers use a parallel distributed processing infrastructure at low cost. The Solution's technical support features include assistance with data analysis/hypothesis verification, various technical training programs, and other offerings that help customers translate their big data visions into reality. IIJ shares customers' issues with system construction, system operation, and analysis processes to propose the ideal big data usage model from a technical standpoint.

Although this press release marks the official launch of the Solution, SBI Holdings, Inc. and Wire and Wireless Co., Ltd. have already started using it to facilitate start-up procedures for their big data usage plans. The customers are thrilled with how effective the Solution has been.

The Solution boasts the following features:

Big data infrastructure

The Solution provides a system infrastructure for big data usage on the IIJ GIO Service platform. In addition to configuring basic server settings, IIJ also preinstalls the infrastructure with middleware and various tools required for big data usage (pig/Hive, Mahout, R, etc.). By eliminating the need for customers to set up verification environments on their own, the Solution allows users to forge ahead with big data usage verification in a speedy, affordable manner.
As a standard feature, IIJ also provides customer support for the middleware and tools that come with the Solution. The Solution has no initial fees whatsoever—the only costs to the customer are the monthly fees. Service periods can range from a minimum of one month to a maximum of three months.

Analysis/hypothesis verification (Optional support feature)

IIJ works with its partner companies to provide support for data analysis tasks that demand an advanced skill set. From helping customers set up policies and hypotheses geared toward practical data usage, to the visualization and analysis of data, the verification of hypotheses, and the reporting of verification results, the Solution offers a wide range of support. This lets the customer discover new information that it might not have been able to locate on its own and also gives its data-based policy ideas clearer shape.

Technical verification (Optional support feature)

The Solution also provides support for technical verification tasks using the big data infrastructure. For example, IIJ engineers can assist in developing verification scenarios, help with verification work, give sound application-development-related advice, aid in data migration, and provide support for various tool operations. Every customer has different needs, and IIJ's skilled technical experts have what it takes to fulfill them.
For customers that want to create their own teams of application developers for parallel distributed processing, the Solution also offers helpful training programs.

Customers looking at putting together new human resources initiatives or project teams aimed at promoting big data usage can combine the Solution's big data infrastructure with the Data Science Team Creation service provided by EMC Japan K.K. to get even better results.

IIJ will continue to expand its solutions in the data analysis field to meet its customers' big data usage needs more fully.

[Reference] Service details and fees

Service	Description	Fee
Big data infrastructure	The Solution provides a verification environment preinstalled with CDH (for Hadoop clusters) or Greenplum DB (for DWH), and a rich array of tools required for verification, including Pig and Hive for DSL; the Mahout machine learning library; and RStudio, an integrated development environment for R, a programming language for statistical analysis. The big data infrastructure package also includes technical inquiries about service features.	[Initial fee] None [Monthly fees] JPY 150,000(Usage period: three months)
Analysis/hypothesis verification (optional)	The Solution offers support (in a collaborative arrangement with IIJ partner companies) for data visualization, data analysis, and hypothesis verification, which require sophisticated analytical skills. Support features cover data visualization, data analysis, data usage-oriented hypothesis development, and data-based hypothesis verification.	Requires separate estimate
Technical verification (optional)	[Support for technical tasks] The Solution provides support for the technical tasks that technical verification procedures involve, including verification scenario development, verification work, advice on sample programming implementation, and operations for tools and middleware.	Requires separate estimate
	[Training] The Solution offers training programs for customers interested in MapReduce application development.	JPY 450,000 (Enrollment limit: 5 people; training period: 2 days)

• * The prices shown do not include tax

The statements within this release contain forward-looking statements about our future plans that involve risk and uncertainty. These statements may differ materially from actual future events or results. Readers are referred to the documents furnished by Internet Initiative Japan Inc. with the SEC, specifically the most recent reports on Forms 20-F and 6-K, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements.

For inquiries, contact

IIJ Corporate Communications

• +81-3-5259-6310
• +81-3-5259-6311
• press@iij.ad.jp