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| "I was very impressed with Total Tec's engineering capabilities. They really know their business and have excellent product knowledge. Whenever we had a problem, they were very proactive—they followed through and resolved it for us." — Eric Nelson Senior Systems Administrator |
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Solutions
A storage solution for a taxing business
When you are in the business of processing up to 50,000 individual tax returns per day, losing data—if only for a minute—simply isn't an option.
That's why ATX/UCG of Caribou, Maine, turned to Total Tec Systems to design and install a storage area network (SAN) that could handle high levels of data throughput while providing mission-critical highavailability.
Moving up to a SAN
ATX, which supplies software to more than 40,000 tax professionals, needed to upgrade from the direct attached SCSI storage it was using with its HP ProLiant systems running Windows Server 2003 and SQL. With ongoing development contracts to support leading Fortune 500 firms, ATX also required that the new SAN deliver complete disaster recovery capability along with headroom to grow.
"We've been growing at an astounding rate—almost 40% a year," says ATX senior systems administrator Eric Nelson. "With our enormous level of e-filing traffic, we can't afford to spend three hours backing up data, and we can't afford to have our systems fail. We needed the bulletproof reliability and performance of a storage area network."
Weighing the options
As an Enterprise Solutions Integrator specializing in complex SAN solutions, Total Tec knew that HP's open storage systems were ideally suited to ATX's needs. Led by account manager Ron Masulla, the Total Tec team presented two options to the customer: the entry-level MSA1000 storage array and the more advanced EVA3000 virtual storage array. Either system could help ATX simplify storage and data management while achieving higher availability.
The account team spent several days at the ATX facility in northern Maine explaining the SAN technology and answering questions. "We focused intently on determining the uptime requirements, the necessary protection levels, and amount of storage required. Clearly this is a missioncritical environment. ATX needed a solution with redundancy that would keep them up and running," recalls Total Tec senior systems engineer Beth Barlow.
Virtual storage is a reality Although the MSA1000 cost less, using it to attain a high degree of disaster recovery would be difficult and expensive. On the other hand, with its virtual storage capabilities, the EVA3000 could execute controllerbased snap clones, which are instantaneously available replicas that the SAN makes of a database. Because they are accessible immediately, snap clones can be served like the original data and replicated in the background.
"We showed ATX how to take a data snapshot, how they could clone and restore data, and how they could deploy a DR site. We addressed everything up front, which they really appreciated," recalls Ron.
By using its own intelligent controllers to make snap clones, the EVA3000 places no demands on the ProLiants' processors. Moreover, the EVA3000's data mirroring capability enables it to copy data multiple times onto all its available Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks (RAID) sets, delivering faster performance and more efficient use of storage capacity.
Instant data replication, unparalleled flexibility
In the end, ATX chose the fibre channel EVA3000 system with 1.5 TB capacity for its overall performance, its ability to create controller-based snap clones, and the speed with which it replicates data over a wide area network. With this solution in place, even in the event of an unanticipated glitch, ATX can reliably recover all data.
"Our new storage area network is a lifesaver because it's eliminated the I/O bottlenecks", says Mr. Nelson. "The fibre-based EVA3000 is much faster than our old SCSI system and its virtual storage capabilities let us skip time-consuming back-up and restores at night. Now all we have to do is make an instant snap clone, and we can generate reports quickly and with much less hassle."
With its tax business continuing to boom, ATX has recently upgraded its ProLiant servers and added new disk drives to its SAN, increasing storage capacity to almost two terabytes. "The EVA3000 has been so flexible that we've been able to add and change systems without a single glitch," says Mr. Nelson.
Commitment to quality service
"Our key value to ATX is delivering quality service," explains Ron. "Even though they are in a very remote location, we're committed to providing the same level of service as if they were down the street. We want to take care of their needs both today and tomorrow."
In fact, with ATX planning to deploy a disaster recovery site at its other facility in Florida, Total Tec anticipates making further enhancements to this growing enterprise's storage infrastructure in the near future.
That's why ATX/UCG of Caribou, Maine, turned to Total Tec Systems to design and install a storage area network (SAN) that could handle high levels of data throughput while providing mission-critical highavailability.
Moving up to a SAN
ATX, which supplies software to more than 40,000 tax professionals, needed to upgrade from the direct attached SCSI storage it was using with its HP ProLiant systems running Windows Server 2003 and SQL. With ongoing development contracts to support leading Fortune 500 firms, ATX also required that the new SAN deliver complete disaster recovery capability along with headroom to grow.
"We've been growing at an astounding rate—almost 40% a year," says ATX senior systems administrator Eric Nelson. "With our enormous level of e-filing traffic, we can't afford to spend three hours backing up data, and we can't afford to have our systems fail. We needed the bulletproof reliability and performance of a storage area network."
Weighing the options
As an Enterprise Solutions Integrator specializing in complex SAN solutions, Total Tec knew that HP's open storage systems were ideally suited to ATX's needs. Led by account manager Ron Masulla, the Total Tec team presented two options to the customer: the entry-level MSA1000 storage array and the more advanced EVA3000 virtual storage array. Either system could help ATX simplify storage and data management while achieving higher availability.
The account team spent several days at the ATX facility in northern Maine explaining the SAN technology and answering questions. "We focused intently on determining the uptime requirements, the necessary protection levels, and amount of storage required. Clearly this is a missioncritical environment. ATX needed a solution with redundancy that would keep them up and running," recalls Total Tec senior systems engineer Beth Barlow.
Virtual storage is a reality Although the MSA1000 cost less, using it to attain a high degree of disaster recovery would be difficult and expensive. On the other hand, with its virtual storage capabilities, the EVA3000 could execute controllerbased snap clones, which are instantaneously available replicas that the SAN makes of a database. Because they are accessible immediately, snap clones can be served like the original data and replicated in the background.
"We showed ATX how to take a data snapshot, how they could clone and restore data, and how they could deploy a DR site. We addressed everything up front, which they really appreciated," recalls Ron.
By using its own intelligent controllers to make snap clones, the EVA3000 places no demands on the ProLiants' processors. Moreover, the EVA3000's data mirroring capability enables it to copy data multiple times onto all its available Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks (RAID) sets, delivering faster performance and more efficient use of storage capacity.
Instant data replication, unparalleled flexibility
In the end, ATX chose the fibre channel EVA3000 system with 1.5 TB capacity for its overall performance, its ability to create controller-based snap clones, and the speed with which it replicates data over a wide area network. With this solution in place, even in the event of an unanticipated glitch, ATX can reliably recover all data.
"Our new storage area network is a lifesaver because it's eliminated the I/O bottlenecks", says Mr. Nelson. "The fibre-based EVA3000 is much faster than our old SCSI system and its virtual storage capabilities let us skip time-consuming back-up and restores at night. Now all we have to do is make an instant snap clone, and we can generate reports quickly and with much less hassle."
With its tax business continuing to boom, ATX has recently upgraded its ProLiant servers and added new disk drives to its SAN, increasing storage capacity to almost two terabytes. "The EVA3000 has been so flexible that we've been able to add and change systems without a single glitch," says Mr. Nelson.
Commitment to quality service
"Our key value to ATX is delivering quality service," explains Ron. "Even though they are in a very remote location, we're committed to providing the same level of service as if they were down the street. We want to take care of their needs both today and tomorrow."
In fact, with ATX planning to deploy a disaster recovery site at its other facility in Florida, Total Tec anticipates making further enhancements to this growing enterprise's storage infrastructure in the near future.
| Optimizing Storage Solutions |
| Accessible information is the lifeblood of most businesses and organizations today. They rely on Storage Area Networks (SAN) to connect databases with servers to send information throughout the enterprise with speed and reliability. Using dedicated, high-performance Fibre Channel Networks to maximize overall bandwidth and performance, the HP environment allows multiple servers to share centrally managed storage across a heterogeneous environment of operating systems and applications. Because storage need not be physically centralized, network bottlenecks and application latency are eliminated. Providing investment protection by intelligently applying best of breed technology and services is Total Tec's philosophy. With cutting edge technologies like SAN, storage acquisition and management are easier and more reliable than ever. |
