Caching and Auto-tiering Software Optimizes SSDs, Cuts Costs and Accelerates Performance
UNTERFOEHRING, Germany and FORT LAUDERDALE Fla. – October 8, 2012 – DataCore Software, the storage hypervisor leader and premier provider of storage virtualization software, today announced that Sigel GmbH, a manufacturer of high-quality office supplies and accessories, has implemented a flexible storage infrastructure solution based on SANsymphony™-V Storage Hypervisor. The software solution supports adaptive caching and automated storage tiering which optimizes the mix of SSD flash storage and SAS disk drives to provide the highest performance and highest available storage infrastructure for the company’s VMware vSphere and Oracle database systems. Sigel has significantly improved performance and flexibility and has benefited by realizing up front cost savings of 30 percent or more and long-term purchasing power savings since any storage can be added when needed at the then “best available” pricing.
“For a company like us with a high growth rate, DataCore is a best fit,” says Hans Wiedemann, Head of IT at Sigel. “We now are independent from having to rely on expensive storage manufacturers and we can easily expand capacity and performance flexibly to support our critical applications and databases. SANsymphony-V delivers automatic high availability without the need to manually administer the system. Our storage is more efficient and faster than before. In addition, we know we would have paid 30 percent or more if we had gone with a hardware-only solution,”
For all the company’s critical sales and business processes, such as ordering and invoicing, Sigel uses the Electronic Data Industry EDIFACT standard. A disruption or downtime of the system literally means a full stop to their business operations – so continuous high availability is critical. For this reason, the IT department is constantly working to ensure the stability and optimization of its data center systems and is always on the lookout for new solutions to help avoid downtime. Sigel already experienced the benefits of virtualization at the server level. They consolidated their server systems to maximize room and costs in the data center and they were able to shut down a number of physical servers. Instead of 15 Linux and twelve Windows systems, they now operate their business on a VMware vSphere platform running on four Fujitsu Primergy RX300 servers. To manage their storage and provide high-availability, Sigel decided to invest in a storage hypervisor from DataCore and at the same time to add some new storage hardware to help performance.
DataCore’s storage virtualization enabled the company to integrate the existing storage investments and new storage hardware regardless of manufacturer or model into a virtual shared storage resource pool. Two Fujitsu Primergy RX300 servers with dual Intel Xeon CPUs with 48GB RAM systems and multiple, high-performance SSD and SAS disks are now all under SANsymphony-V control and management at Sigel. Since its implementation, the storage environment has run without a single interruption. The IT Manager describes the system administration as “intuitive and familiar” – with a Windows-like management interface that is “innovative and easy to use.” Within minutes, virtual drives with automated tiering and auto failover data protection features can be created and rapidly assigned and provisioned to virtual or physical machines.
Accelerated performance of critical applications at lower costs with Auto-Tiering
Sigel also reported a measurable and noticeable acceleration of the overall performance of their virtual machine environment in combination with the DataCore caching software. Compared to the old infrastructure, the frequent “night upgrades and installations” – where they had to perform jobs like software updates – now only takes a quarter of the time it took previously. In addition to caching, DataCore’s auto-tiering function moves higher performance workloads and data – for example the Oracle databases that require faster response times and more demanding I/O – to the faster SSD drives; while less-used and active data remains on the lower cost SAS disks.
Sigel is a successful mid-sized company headquartered in Mertingen, in Bavaria Germany. Nearly 300 employees develop, manufacture and market products and solutions for business office applications. The Business Products division develops high-quality products for a modern working office environment. The Business Segment Print Works division produces a variety of order-related forms, laser roll forms, thermal forms, banking and government forms.
About Sigel GmbH
Sigel GmbH, based in Mertingen (district of Donau-Ries), founded in 1947 as a print shop is now one of Europe’s market leader in stylish business products. Sigel offers a variety of products like high-quality accessories, the popular CONCEPTUM ® notebook and the office organization. The innovative business products set standards in function and design. Sigel employed at its headquarters in Mertingen approximately 290 employees and achieved a turnover of approximately 60 million Euro.
About DataCore Software
DataCore Software develops storage virtualization software for high availability, fast performance and maximum utilization from storage in virtual and physical IT environments. DataCore SANsymphony™-V storage hypervisor is a comprehensive, hardware-independent solution that fundamentally changes the economics of provisioning, replicating and protecting storage in large enterprises and small to midsize businesses. For additional information, visit the DataCore website at https://www.datacore.com or call (877) 780-5111.
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