DataCore + Fujitsu Business Solutions
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Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe Ltd. (FTEL) faced challenges with their existing storage solutions, primarily due to scalability and management issues. They adopted DataCore's SANsymphony storage management software to enhance performance, reliability, and centralized management while using cost-effective commodity RAID devices. The new solution improved overall operational efficiency, reduced administrative overhead, and provided a better return on investment.
DataCore + Fujitsu Business Solutions
- 1. Business Solutions Powered by DataCore™ The Business Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe Ltd. (FTEL) is a leading manufacturer of fixed access tele- communications equipment. Based in Birmingham and Belfast in the United Kingdom, FTEL specializes in research and development, design and supply of high quality telecommunications products and services including the FDX-Access family of broadband products for ADSL and ASDH for residential, SME and large enterprise use. FTEL’s core customers are telecommunications service providers requiring state-of-the-art equipment to ensure their own customer service levels. The Challenge With a growing heterogeneous server environment running Oracle, Clearcase, desktop and in-house hardware and software development applications, FTEL realized there was a need for deploying a dynamic and flexible storage environment. The existing storage solution was a combination of Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Direct Attached Storage (DAS). Although they were very content with the ability of NAS to meet their file sharing requirements, FTEL identified the need to eliminate the poor scalability, complex backup processes and limited availability of direct attached storage to satisfy their 24/7 operation. In addition, the desire to mirror data across the campus in a cost-effective manner, improve application I/O throughput performance and implement a centralized storage management capability helped drive investigation of alternative solutions. The Solution During a period when various proposed solutions under consideration were either too expensive, too proprietary or functionally inadequate, FTEL was contacted by DataCore and introduced to the SANsymphony™ advanced storage networking and management software. Ian Batten, FTEL’s IT Director, explained, “The DataCore solution appeared to offer many of the aspects missing from other options, such as block level snapshot, easier device sharing, single point of administration, better caching and the prospect of interesting solutions to the backup issue.” FTEL decided to evaluate SANsymphony utilizing commodity RAID devices for storage. With even relatively low-end storage, the results were impressive enough that the solution moved forward into a production environment. Fujitsu at a Glance Business Design and manufacture of broadband telecommunica- tions products Main Requirements Improve manageability and disk utilization over previous DAS approach. Cost-effective data mirroring. Centralized storage management. Environment Commodity RAID storage sub- systems. Solaris application servers. Oracle and Clearcase databases. Brocade Fibre Channel fabric infrastructure. DataCore Solution SANsymphony Network Edition with dual SDS nodes.
- 2. How did you learn about DataCore? The business development manager for Datacore Software was a long-standing contact whom we had dealt with previously. He introduced us to the storage virtualization concept that SANsymphony provided at a time when we were re-assessing our approach to storage management. How many other solutions were considered? How long was the selection process? We considered the purchase of an EMC storage array until we saw the bottom line of the quote. We couldn’t see how to justify such an expense. SANsymphony would enable us to deploy a similar solution with comparable functionality, but with much lower- cost, commodity-based equipment. Our negotiating power and purchasing flexibility expanded tremendously, allowing us to choose from a much broader marketplace of hardware. Why did you choose a DataCore solution? We tried to address the management problems we were experiencing with our direct-attached storage environment. It was extremely cumbersome. By comparison, we were pleased with many aspects of our existing NAS solution, particularly with the ability to manage data centrally with a consistent set of tools. We wanted to duplicate that management ease on a block level. SANsymphony offered – at data block level – the same type of manageability, flexibility, uniformity and ease of use. This was a primary requirement, considering the difficulty we experienced in managing and fully utilizing our direct-attached disks. What is your hardware environment? Compaq servers are used as the SANsymphony storage domain servers. These are serving storage to Sun application servers running the Solaris operating system and Solstice Disk Suite. SAN fabric switches are from Brocade with fibre channel HBAs from JNI in the Solaris systems and QLogic in the SDS nodes. What are you doing with your storage network? What are you managing? Applications include Clearcase software development databases and Oracle. SANsymphony is providing the underlying storage for these applications. Programming staff developing the software for the FTEL products rely on this data daily. It is critical data for our ongoing product development environment. How much data are you currently storing? The SANsymphony configuration consists of half a terabyte of specifically-purchased, underlying RAID disk storage. We also have a number of legacy DAS devices which we know can be added to the storage pool. We are considering doing this to maximize our use of available storage for minimum outlay and to easily accommodate the expected growth in data. What do you think are the benefits of SANsymphony? What do you like best? We have found the SANsymphony environment delivers a number of real benefits. Reliability and ease of management are key, with little administrative overhead required to maintain the configura- tion. We no longer have to use multiple, complex LUN partitioning tools – that alone is a real time saver. This translates into overall lower total cost of ownership and a positive effect on both personnel and the bottom line. We are also particularly impressed by the performance the system delivers with its caching features. From relatively low-cost components we have a solution that can match the performance of much more expensive solutions. The added responsiveness of our applications in turn enables us to conduct our operations more efficiently and achieve higher return on investment. Business Solutions Powered by DataCore™ www.datacore.com Talking with Fujitsu Telecommunications Europe Copyright © 2002 by DataCore Software Corporation. All rights reserved. DataCore, the DataCore Logo, and SANsymphony are trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. Other DataCore product or service names or logos referenced herein are trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. All other products, services and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. P088AA (0202/10M)