Stronghold Powers Virtual Data Center With Isilon IQ

Isilon Systems, Inc. announced that Stronghold Data, provider of enterprise data services, is using Isilon IQ scale-out NAS to power real-time data replication of entire compute environments including virtualized servers and desktop computing. To provide its clients with continuous data replication for disaster recovery, Stronghold has deployed an integrated solution combining VMware ESX 3.5, Isilon IQ, and Isilon’s SyncIQ asynchronous data replication software, delivering immediate, 24x7x365 data access with industry-leading levels of data protection.

Data Center of Stronghold

The integrated Isilon and VMware solution has been proven on large-scale data transfers, including more than one billion files for Stronghold’s client Barton Mutual Group. By using Isilon IQ in combination with VMware, Stronghold has provided Barton Mutual with a highly reliable, virtualized scale-out IT infrastructure to significantly improve scalability, performance, and ease of use, while reducing capital and operational expenditures.

"Barton Mutual provides insurance services throughout Missouri, making its digital records vital to both its business and its clients’ financial security. Therefore, this critical information must be accessible around the clock, without fail," said David Markley, CIO, Stronghold Data. "To ensure data security, while also maximizing the efficiency of their data center, virtualized servers and scalable storage were absolute necessities. With Isilon IQ, we have the ideal storage solution for powering a VMware environment, as its multi-protocol support, single file system, and on-demand scalability make deployment and ongoing operation simple and effective."

Due to the limited scalability and inherent complexity of traditional storage systems, enterprise customers must manage dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of file system instances when supporting a VMware environment, significantly reducing the efficiency and utilization of server virtualization. By combining Isilon IQ and VMware ESX 3.5, enterprise businesses can eliminate traditional storage as a bottleneck and create a scale-out, virtualized infrastructure – from servers to storage – which increases data center flexibility and overall utilization. This integration unifies servers, network connections, and storage into single points of management, significantly improving scalability, performance, and ease of use across the entire data center.

By deploying Isilon scale-out NAS solutions, Stronghold was able to unify Barton Mutual’s SQL databases, image files, and Exchange Server data into a single, high performance, highly scalable, shared pool of storage, simplifying Barton Mutual’s storage infrastructure and streamlining access and management of more than one billion files. Isilon IQ, featuring its OneFS operating system software and seamless multi-protocol integration, enables Stronghold to maximize the efficiency and high availability of Barton Mutual’s VMware-based environment, while eliminating the cost and complexity barriers of traditional storage solutions.

"Stronghold Data’s integration of Isilon scale-out NAS with VMware for Barton Mutual demonstrates the dramatic business and operational advances possible with Isilon IQ in virtualized environments," said Ram Appalaraju, vice president of marketing, Isilon Systems. "By combining Isilon and VMware, enterprises can simplify their storage infrastructure to speed data access and application performance, significantly increasing data center efficiency and workflow productivity."