Italian Brennercom Adds DataCore SANsymphony-V

DataCore Software Corporation
announced that information and communication technology (ICT) company Brennercom SpA has attained a new level of BC
and performance for its VDI and cloud services using the DataCore SANsymphony-V
Storage Hypervisor.

By making use of the SANsymphony-V storage
hypervisor, corporate data is centrally administrated on different
hardware storage solutions and all of it is protected by DataCore’s synchronous
mirroring capability. The virtualisation software required only a
quarter of the investment that would have been needed for a hardware-based SAN
to provide a stable, high performance VMware View VDI for 160 desktop
platforms, in addition to supporting the storage needs for all of its virtual
machines running on VMware vSphere.

"The
virtualisation and common central management provided by the DataCore storage
hypervisor considerably reduced our IT division’s work load. New systems
can now be fully set up for users within
10 minutes, unlike the laborious, many hours and days set-up required to
install physical server storage systems in the past. Fast provisioning and
capacity expansions can now be easily implemented via the central console with
a few mouse clicks in the event of an acute need for storage,"
explained Roberto Sartin, head of technical division at Brennercom.

Establishment
of Virtual Desktop and Cloud Infrastructure
At Brennercom, internal IT services are provided by
the IT management division. The division decided to extend its existing virtual
VMware server infrastructure and to establish a VDI and cloud services based on
VMware. To handle the expansion, it was decided that a new approach to managing
data storage was needed.

The primary drivers were two-fold:

• First,
  Brennercom needed to expand its external computer centre to accommodate new
  cloud computing services. Central and efficient system administration was a
  core objective of this extension.
• Second, it needed greater HA due to
  the increased BC requirements that would result from its move to
  centralization.

The project plan and investments also encompassed the need for
a later partial move of a number of the systems to a second location in Trento
(about 31 miles away) to ensure that the immediate, HA system could be backed
up by a two-site DR model for the purposes of required ISO audits.

The company also had to consider the
planned consolidation of its current, heterogeneous IT landscape at the Bozen
site. While the central computer center services were based on a FC infrastructure,
some divisions were making use of iSCSI storage. Apart from vSphere virtual
machines, XenServer was also used in some areas.

Cost-effective VDI with 160 desktops
The VDI with VMware View is based on an integrated system supporting
virtualized storage and virtualized servers. The decision to use this platform
was taken after the positive experience gained with the VMware hypervisor. The
160 desktops are being migrated to the notebooks or thin clients of the field
workers and the helpdesk, using the centralized infrastructure. The long-term
benefits of VDI lie in the lower costs and the less cumbersome, centralized
administration needed when it comes to the setup, updating and maintenance of
these virtual desktops.

"On
the storage side, the VDI and the virtual servers are supported by DataCore’s
round-the-clock, failsafe storage infrastructure and performance has been
enhanced by intelligent caching, fulfilling all our expectations,"
comments Sartin. "By using the
DataCore storage hypervisor, we were able to integrate a technically complex
solution with a universal range of services to meet the short-term performance
and HA requirements of our VDI needs. In addition, the integrated migration and
replication features have created the basis for efficiently implementing the
planned model we need for DR."

Flexible
Infrastructure for Cloud Services
The next large-scale project to be concluded by
year-end 2012 is dividing and synchronizing the existing systems between the
computer centres in Bolzano and Trento so that operations can continue at one
location in the event of a catastrophe.

"As
is the case in other industries, BC is an absolute necessity for us. By making
use of the DataCore solution within the virtual infrastructure created by
VMware vSphere and VDI, we cannot only ensure that we meet these corporate
requirements, but also guarantee optimal cost efficiency as a result of the
hardware independence of the solution. This affects both the direct investment
and the indirect and long-term cost of refreshes, expansions and added hardware
acquisitions. We have thus created the technical basis for our external IT
services, and within this framework we are creating the most flexible and
varied range of cloud services possible," concludes Brennercom CEO,
Dr. Karl Manfredi.