HP_CVP_CIO_NDP_Final
- 1. The NPD Group, a global market research group, provides global informa- tion and advisory services to help clients make better business decisions, track markets, understand their end consum- ers and drive profitable growth. Senior VP Gabe Abreu describes how HP’s SDN-ready FlexNetwork architecture solutions provide greater networking bandwidth to improve access to timely data for a competitive advantage. You recently deployed a new “green- field” data center. Describe your busi- ness and operational requirements for the network infrastructure. As a 24x7 operation, reliable access to timely data through advanced analytics is essential for our business to remain com- petitive. Big Data is the backbone of our business. As client demand for real-time, complex analysis increased, we recog- nized the need for greater networking bandwidth and scalability to support the massive influx of information that must be consistently aggregated for clients. In the past, deriving actionable busi- ness value from data through advanced analytics was a slow process, due to bandwidth limitations of aged networks. Also, because we operate in 26 countries worldwide and provide coverage across many time zones and geographical areas, we needed to simplify standard network operating procedures. Why did you choose HP? After an extensive vendor selection process, we chose HP because of the promise of Software-defined Network- ing (SDN) and the sheer performance of its Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF) virtualization technology. The HP Intelligent Management Center (IMC) is a single-pane-of-glass application that enables us to manage every device from one single point of view, which we can’t do on a different vendor’s legacy network in our other data center. How have HP’s SDN-ready FlexNetwork solutions and services solved these issues? To improve the performance of network switches, we are leveraging HP’s Intelli- gent Resilient Framework (IRF) technolo- gy. IRF gives us redundancy built into the operating system for increased flexibility. We just need to configure the system once and it is then dynamically allocated. HP switches are easy to configure and link, and they scale seamlessly, which enables increased network bandwidth across NPD’s data center. Because all the devices have a unified op- erating system, implementation was much shorter than previous experiences with other vendors. The fact that HP helped us achieve so much in a short time speaks volumes for HP. The entire deployment process—from design and engineering to implementation—took just six months with a single-vendor solution. We also purchased HP educational services. HP trained and certified our IT staff members to configure and support our HP FlexNetwork environment. How would you envision deploying SDN in your infrastructure? The security capabilities are very compel- ling. SDN enables us to turn switches into firewall devices. It gives us firewall functionality as packet inspection, access control, and MAC address filtering. Just the sheer reduction of devices in the network is another key benefit. SDN can help simplify the environment so we don’t need to manage multiple hardware components. We anticipate both opera- tional management and capital expendi- ture savings. Based on the SDN-ready technology we have rolled out so far, HP’s Intelligent Man- agement Center is a great addition. We now have a single point of management across our devices and the single operating system across all of the network components. We find this very advantageous. How have the data center network improvements impacted the business? We met our business goal of bringing our new data center network online within our specified time line of six months. There was no disruption to the busi- ness, as we achieved 100 percent uptime. We’re now able to process multiple terabytes of information on a daily basis. This significantly improves the decision- making value we provide to our existing clients, as well as what we can offer to potential new clients. Do you have advice for your peers who may be faced with this challenge? It’s extremely important to partner with a vendor and buy the entire suite of services, including professional imple- mentation services. HP did a great job configuring, architecting, and imple- menting the solution, while giving us choice, flexibility and scalability across our data center. for more information: visit www.hp.com/networking Data Center Network Transformation Delivers Better Scalability A D V E R T O R I A L Gabe Abreu Senior Vice President Global Enterprise, The NPD Group Abreu is responsible for align- ing IT solutions with corporate objectives to ensure the IT department is well-equipped to support current and future business operations. Executive Viewpoint