Town of South Windsor Virtualizes "Top to Bottom" - DataCore
Enables IT Department to Repurpose Systems and Avoid Costly
Rip-and-Replace
Powered by Virtualization: Connecticut town achieves its
objective of embracing business continuity and disaster recovery -
within budget, without compromising on capabilities
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida - July 8, 2009 - DataCore Software, the
leading provider of storage virtualization, business continuity and
disaster recovery software solutions, today announced that the Town of
South Windsor in Connecticut has realized tremendous benefits after
deploying DataCore's SANmelody storage virtualization software as its
storage area network (SAN). Prior to DataCore, the Town of South
Windsor was grappling with an older, converted Novell network that the
IT Department had migrated to Microsoft. In the words of the current
network administrator for the town, this was literally riddled with
"single points of failure" everywhere. The IT team has now collapsed
the two separate networks into one new network built from scratch.
Moreover, Town of South Windsor has gone "all in" in terms of
virtualization - deploying virtual servers, supported by virtual
storage.
After being sold on VMware to address the IT Department's
server-sprawl, the IT director at Town of South Windsor knew a SAN was
needed to support the virtual machines. "However, the hardware SAN
approach was just not going to happen," said Scott Roberts, IT
director, Town of South Windsor. "Traditional SAN vendors were asking
upwards of $250,000 just for the storage piece of the infrastructure
puzzle. Our entire budget was $125,000 - for virtual servers, storage,
new equipment, everything. The fact that DataCore allowed us to
repurpose servers we already had on hand was a tremendous advantage as
well."
A day in the life before DataCore: flirting with disaster
Before DataCore virtualized the town's approach to data storage, the
town actually was managing two separate networks - one for the Town of
South Windsor Police Department and one for the town government side
itself. The town was completely reliant on tape back-up for recovery.
"We had no business continuity or disaster recovery," explained
Roberts. "It was a case of cross your fingers, hope and pray that the
digital media will be restored form tape and we can get the equipment
needed to get operational within a reasonable timeframe. A best-case
scenario for this was that we would be back in business in 2-4 weeks."
Before VMware and DataCore, the IT landscape consisted of a bunch of
old HP servers, with single uses - an Exchange "box," a virus scan
"box," a database "box" for individual applications, etc. All and all,
the IT team was managing seven individual tape backups that they had to
manage. "There was no storage area network at all prior to DataCore,"
commented Lance Page, network administrator and project leader, Town of
South Windsor. "If you lost the file and print server - you lost all
the files."
It was clear that this would be an unsustainable situation for the
town, going forward. Whereas a traditional hardware SAN with Fibre
Channel connectivity would have delivered on most of the business
objectives that the IT Department was striving for, this was far too
expensive of a proposition for a town government on a tight budget.
Fortunately, Roberts and Page were introduced to DataCore through an IT
solutions provider that was a VMware and DataCore partner. SANmelody,
DataCore's software-based storage virtualization solution, was just
what the town needed to economically deliver the business continuity
(BC) and disaster recovery (DR) the IT Department was desperately
trying to put in place.
Virtualization and repurposing - to the rescue
Having learned the benefits of server virtualization from the VMware
partner, the IT staff at Town of South Windsor was "all ears" to
hearing what DataCore could do for them on the storage-side. "It was
clear that if we wanted to go in the direction we were dead-set on
going - and that is the way of virtualization - the DataCore was
absolutely the right choice for us," added Roberts.
For half the price of a traditional hardware SAN alone, the IT folks
at Town of South Windsor were able to buy the VMware licenses they
required, three SANmelody SANs, as well as the necessary new equipment
for the deployment - including two identical machines, as well as
additional, new HP servers. Exisiting equipment was repurposed for the
new deployment - delivering substantial savings. Two DataCore SANmelody
nodes located in separate buildings are now running in an
"active-active" capacity (connected synchronously through Fibre
Channel), while a third runs in a completely different site and runs
"active-passive" (connected via asynchronous mirroring using iSCSI).
"We have faith in this network because of DataCore," commented Roberts.
"That was not the case before we deployed the DataCore SAN."
Bottom-line benefits: real disaster recovery
Town of South Windsor can now lose an entire building and be up and
running at a moment's notice, since the SANs are synchronized. The
virtual servers that are connected to the SANs can also be restored
quickly on the same premise - they are replicated too. "If one building
explodes, all our data is already connected back to the second system
at the other building," noted Page. "Our disaster recovery plan is set.
So much so that if one building blows up, it will take me longer to
drive to the other building than it will be to get the town's network
back up and running. No joke."
Customer Snapshot - Town of South Windsor
With 25,000 residents, the Town of South Windsor encompasses roughly
26 square miles. Five people comprise the IT Department at the Town of
South Windsor and all told, approximately 250 people work for the town.
Anyone on the government side of things, other than the Board of
Education, relies on the systems supported by a small IT team -
including public safety, public works, finance, strategic planning,
etc. Entities utilizing these systems are the Police Department, the
Public Works Department, the Tax Collector, the Town Assessor, the
Finance Office, Human Resources, the IT Department itself, the
Recreation Department, the Human Services Department, and the Sewer
Treatment Plant. For all of these IT "constituents," IT is charged
with, among other things, ensuring that the 40-50 applications the
systems support do so without interruption.
About DataCore Software
DataCore Software, the leading provider of storage virtualization
SAN software, fundamentally changes the economics of managing storage
with innovative software that combines advanced functions and services
with the agility and savings of hardware independence. DataCore lowers
the cost and complexity of IT by making storage efficient, fast,
flexible, fail-safe and virtual. DataCore's portable storage server
software simplifies and automates capacity expansion and centralizes
storage management for Windows, UNIX, Linux, MacOS and NetWare
operating systems as well as hypervisors from VMware, Citrix, Microsoft
and other suppliers. DataCore is privately held and its corporate
headquarters are in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. For more information, call
(877) 780-5111 or visit http://www.datacore.com.
DataCore, the DataCore logo and SANmelody are trademarks or
registered 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.