3par Helps Smarsh

3PAR announced that Smarsh, a managed service company in secure and email archiving solutions, has deployed 3PAR Utility Storage within its secure cloud infrastructure.

Smarsh deployed a scalable 3PAR InServ T-Class Storage Server to support its Microsoft SQL Server database, and a second T-Class array to handle backup and recovery. As a result, the hosted service provider reduced its database storage footprint by 66%, storage capacity requirements by 45%, and provisioning time by 40%.

"We evaluated multiple vendors and found that only 3PAR could address the unique reliability, performance, and scalability challenges we were facing while supporting SQL Server Always On Technologies," said Stephen Marsh, CEO and founder of Smarsh. "In addition, 3PAR delivered superior technology as compared to other leading storage vendors."

Faced with data growth rates in the neighborhood of 2 TB per month, Smarsh had long outgrown its Direct Attached Storage (DAS) environment. In addition to space limitations, Smarsh needed to ensure ongoing high performance with its Microsoft SQL Server database as the company grows. Smarsh began to evaluate other storage options that would be compatible with its SQL Server deployment and support SQL Server Always On Technologies.

By deploying 3PAR Utility Storage
in conjunction with SQL Server,
Smarsh experienced the following benefits:

• Scalable performance: 3PAR’s massively parallel and autonomically load-balanced architecture has continued to deliver increasing performance and agility levels amidst exponential increases in data and user volume at Smarsh.
• Always On Technologies: 3PAR’s support for Microsoft’s SQL Server Always On Technologies has enabled Smarsh to deliver customers continuous access to their billions of archived emails, even as the company has continued to scale to accommodate growth.
• Maximum capacity utilization: With 3PAR, Smarsh has reduced its SQL storage footprint by two-thirds and nearly halved capacity requirements by improving capacity utilization using 3PAR’s Fast RAID technology and 3PAR Thin Provisioning software.
• Expedited application development: 3PAR has helped Smarsh to accelerate the development and testing of new applications by enabling the company’s internal departments to share production-quality SQL Server data instantly, affordably, and flexibly using 3PAR Virtual Copy.
• Rapid response to change: With its 3PAR InServ arrays, Smarsh has gained the ability to mix storage tiers and protocols within the same system, while autonomic tiered storage capabilities ensure the service provider’s ability to respond rapidly to changing business conditions for significantly less than monolithic storage.

"3PAR Utility Storage provided the resilient cloud infrastructure that Smarsh required to scale its business simply and efficiently while ensuring high and consistent performance levels," said David Scott, President and CEO for 3PAR. "Smarsh customers, in turn, are benefiting from quick, reliable, and completely secure access to their archived data – a critical factor in proactively managing and mitigating risk."