CHALLENGE
To effectively test their rocket propulsion systems, NASA SSC needed better application availability and performance from its data storage infrastructure both before and after the testing.
SOLUTION
DataCore™ SANsymphony™ virtualization software and reporting and system management tools.
RESULTS
Implementing a software- defined storage (SDS) solution empowered the SSC to deliver the high availability and better overall performance needed while enabling risk avoidance. In addition, the solution also allowed for improved capacity management and data storage utilization as well as hardware independence and flexibility when upgrading. Storage resources are now easier to manage and easier to scale, which drive cost savings and protects current and future IT investments.
NASA’s It and Data Storage Mission-critical Challenge
As the data center continued to grow and become more of a critical service to the space center, Stennis Space Center needed a storage solution that could provide the continuous availability and speed it required.
The systems integrator, working with the space center, reached out to DataCore for a high-performance, high-availability software-defined storage (SDS) solution.
“Because each rocket engine test can cost upwards of $1,000,000, it is critical that the numerous IT functions on which these trials depend be available and running for the 72 hours prior to the test, during the exercise, and for the 72 hours afterwards,” says David Oakes, ASRC’s systems support manager at Stennis Space Center. “DataCore meets the high performing, fail-safe criteria the space center requires with so much money at stake. It can bypass any storage glitches to keep the tests running without interruption.”
Virtualization Software Lets SSC IT Do More with Less
According to Lamar Nicholson, storage and virtual environment architect, “Virtualization helped us realize tremendous business value from relatively modest assets. Virtualizing our servers and storage has truly enabled us to do more with less, reduce labor-intensive maintenance and realize a more agile IT infrastructure.
Hardware-Agnostic and Other Benefits from DataCore Software-Defined Storage
The overriding benefit for NASA Stennis Space Center has been attaining high availability for its IT systems so that uptime or “availability” of applications is assured. Lamar Nicholson also reports that:
“We now have continuous availability made possible by the synchronous mirroring and with that, we’ve met our primary objective. Our freedom to choose the hardware that best suits our needs both technically and financially, and to refresh at will, is the added value and an enormous strength of the DataCore solution.
This assures that we will be able to deliver with confidence the IT services critical to meeting the goals of Stennis Space Center and thus better support America’s efforts in space exploration.”
Software-Defined Storage for Easier IT Management
Lamar Nicholson says that a virtualized storage infrastructure delivers the automation needed to make systems management easy and efficient.
“The portability of SANsymphony allows Stennis to move our virtualized storage platform onto newer, more innovative and faster nodes as they arrive in the market. This really provides us with investment protection, making sure we get the absolute highest return on our hardware upgrades.
On the flip side, we save so much being able to extend the life of legacy equipment, yet it comes with peace of mind knowing newer boxes will integrate seamlessly.
I cannot say enough about the ease of data migration afforded us. We can introduce new storage sub-systems and migrate databases quickly and easily. Previously, having to manually move something was always cumbersome, time consuming, not to mention very disruptive.”
