February 5, 2013 at 12:54Wholesale Electric: Houston, we have no problem
For more than 60 years, Wholesale Electric has been an exemplary company in the Land of Opportunity, supplying a wide range of power supply products worldwide. But it was not always so. It is unlikely that the founders of the company back in 1949 could even dream of such a development. We would like to tell you about one of the reasons that led them to success.
But first, a few words about the company itself. Wholesale Electric is located in Houston, USA, has a staff of 470 employees and is engaged in retail and wholesale of everything that is needed for power supply. With the growth of fame outside the home country, the business of the company began to expand, and the portfolio was replenished with international orders. But along with potential profits on the horizon seemed quite real difficulties. The most relevant of them was the storage of data. Wholesale Electric used dedicated physical servers with directly attached storage to run all of its mission-critical applications. We all know that, according to popular wisdom, admins are divided into two types: those that do not already backup, and those that are alreadydo. However, in the existing at that time system configuration, creating a full backup was not possible. That is why, as the volume of information grew, the company's specialists began to seriously worry about disaster recovery, IT management and data center efficiency. Looking ahead, we are announcing the outcome of the “drama": on the basis of VMware technologies, a virtual environment has been deployed that provides centralized data storage in the Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN. And now in order.
The problems that made Wholesale Electric experts think about “the eternal” are quite trivial and sooner or later “catch up” with almost any successful business. The cornerstone of the existing infrastructure at that time was document management. Just imagine how many “pieces of paper” only one project for the construction of a chemical plant requires. Extrapolate this for five years, which will last the construction, then multiply by the number of people from different parts of the world who should have constant access to this documentation. Now, you can imagine what 19 physical servers of the company faced, each of which was connected to the storage system.
This system could hardly be called effective. No, she still coped with the tasks, but at what cost ... First, to maintain the round-the-clock work of such a motley “zoo”, the company was forced to store literally a whole rack of spare parts: disks of various types, array controllers, power supplies, etc. . Secondly, due to the same “mottling”, storage resources were used at 30-35 percent. And although the authorities, as they say, “understood everything”, this state of affairs did not suit anyone particularly. Thirdly, the management of the equipment nomenclature has contributed. If the next update of their own applications suddenly “extinguished” the server, for administrators of Wholesale Electric there were, frankly, not the best of times. “Somewhere around the corner,” consisting in a solution for disaster recovery, was hiding somewhere. Basically,
I would like to write that “without any hesitation, the Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN was chosen”, but this would be another marketing tale. In reality, the first people Wholesale Electric experts turned to for advice were their colleagues from other companies. Yes, word of mouth in all its glory. It played an important role along with the company's own research: as a result, the choice arose between Dell, EMC, HP and NetApp. And if you remember the name of this blog, you can easily guess who won in the end. Consider why.
The key point was the Fluid Data architecture, which we once talked about, along with software from:
• Windows Server,
• VMware vSphere 4.1,
• VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
• Dell Compellent Data Progression,
• Dell Compellent Fast Track,
• Dell Compellent Data Instant Replay,
• Dell Compellent Remote Instant Replay.
The initial idea is this: data in storage should not be stored statically. On the contrary, they should “flow” depending on the frequency of circulation, criticality for the company, tuned policies, moon phase, etc. The system itself can be described by a model of three layers: on the first, “fast layer”, there are all the important data that must be accessed at maximum speed. The second “layer” is intended for less needed information, as well as for use as a “transshipment base” between the first and second layer. Finally, the third, “lower layer” is the “slowest”, designed for long-term storage of information. Personally, all this somehow reminds us of the cousin of the demon Maxwell, who instead of molecules sorts the "energy" of information.
In practice, it turned out the following: a Fiber Channel storage system with a capacity of three terabytes for level 1 and SATA drives with nine terabytes for level 3 storage. However, all the “salt” lies in the nuances, namely, in software designed for data management. The Dell Compellent Data Progression is responsible for the automatic analysis of the circulation frequency and other factors that determine which particular layer needs to be written to. In turn, Fast Track allows you to "finish" the technology, not at the volume level, but at the level of each disk. The essence of the approach is the dynamic physical placement of the requested data on the external hard tracks. This allows you to increase the access speed not only due to the fact that the reading head does not need to "rush" in search of recorded blocks. Generally, fragmentation of data becomes smaller, which means that when reading a disk, it will be necessary to make fewer revolutions, which ultimately leads to energy savings. In the context of Wholesale Electric data, the need for access to which often arises, as well as data designated as critical for business, are at the first level, while the rest are automatically moved to the third without the intervention of IT personnel. Now at the 3rd level is about 80% of the company's data. All this allowed to increase the overall utilization of resources from 30-35% to 75%. the rest are automatically moved to the third without the intervention of IT staff. Now at the 3rd level is about 80% of the company's data. All this allowed to increase the overall utilization of resources from 30-35% to 75%. the rest are automatically moved to the third without the intervention of IT staff. Now at the 3rd level is about 80% of the company's data. All this allowed to increase the overall utilization of resources from 30-35% to 75%.
But no matter how wonderful the storage system was organized, efforts will sink into oblivion, if the possibility of quick recovery of information in the event of an accident is not provided. For these purposes, Wholesale Electric uses Dell Compellent Data Instant Replay. This tool is designed to create local copies (snapshots of the file system) of all virtual machines; copies are made once a day for non-critical volumes and every three hours for mission-critical databases. In addition, volumes that the company has identified as critical are replicated to individual storage capacities on the storage network for disaster recovery using Dell Compellent Remote Instant Replay.
What are the results? Perhaps the most important thing is what the company's infrastructure today is. According to Bill Fyfe, each benefited from this in his own way: finances benefited from reduced energy consumption, employees benefited from increased speed and stability. And of course, IT people won the most: they received not only an increase in capacity, but also a stable replicated system that could recover within tens of minutes. In other words, we can say that the IT department is in some way finally at rest. Is this not the most desirable state in the universe?
You fly Virtualize, then you grow! Grandmother
But first, a few words about the company itself. Wholesale Electric is located in Houston, USA, has a staff of 470 employees and is engaged in retail and wholesale of everything that is needed for power supply. With the growth of fame outside the home country, the business of the company began to expand, and the portfolio was replenished with international orders. But along with potential profits on the horizon seemed quite real difficulties. The most relevant of them was the storage of data. Wholesale Electric used dedicated physical servers with directly attached storage to run all of its mission-critical applications. We all know that, according to popular wisdom, admins are divided into two types: those that do not already backup, and those that are alreadydo. However, in the existing at that time system configuration, creating a full backup was not possible. That is why, as the volume of information grew, the company's specialists began to seriously worry about disaster recovery, IT management and data center efficiency. Looking ahead, we are announcing the outcome of the “drama": on the basis of VMware technologies, a virtual environment has been deployed that provides centralized data storage in the Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN. And now in order.Do it once ...
The problems that made Wholesale Electric experts think about “the eternal” are quite trivial and sooner or later “catch up” with almost any successful business. The cornerstone of the existing infrastructure at that time was document management. Just imagine how many “pieces of paper” only one project for the construction of a chemical plant requires. Extrapolate this for five years, which will last the construction, then multiply by the number of people from different parts of the world who should have constant access to this documentation. Now, you can imagine what 19 physical servers of the company faced, each of which was connected to the storage system.
This system could hardly be called effective. No, she still coped with the tasks, but at what cost ... First, to maintain the round-the-clock work of such a motley “zoo”, the company was forced to store literally a whole rack of spare parts: disks of various types, array controllers, power supplies, etc. . Secondly, due to the same “mottling”, storage resources were used at 30-35 percent. And although the authorities, as they say, “understood everything”, this state of affairs did not suit anyone particularly. Thirdly, the management of the equipment nomenclature has contributed. If the next update of their own applications suddenly “extinguished” the server, for administrators of Wholesale Electric there were, frankly, not the best of times. “Somewhere around the corner,” consisting in a solution for disaster recovery, was hiding somewhere. Basically,
Do two ...
I would like to write that “without any hesitation, the Dell Compellent Storage Center SAN was chosen”, but this would be another marketing tale. In reality, the first people Wholesale Electric experts turned to for advice were their colleagues from other companies. Yes, word of mouth in all its glory. It played an important role along with the company's own research: as a result, the choice arose between Dell, EMC, HP and NetApp. And if you remember the name of this blog, you can easily guess who won in the end. Consider why. The key point was the Fluid Data architecture, which we once talked about, along with software from:
• Windows Server,
• VMware vSphere 4.1,
• VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager
• Dell Compellent Data Progression,
• Dell Compellent Fast Track,
• Dell Compellent Data Instant Replay,
• Dell Compellent Remote Instant Replay.
The initial idea is this: data in storage should not be stored statically. On the contrary, they should “flow” depending on the frequency of circulation, criticality for the company, tuned policies, moon phase, etc. The system itself can be described by a model of three layers: on the first, “fast layer”, there are all the important data that must be accessed at maximum speed. The second “layer” is intended for less needed information, as well as for use as a “transshipment base” between the first and second layer. Finally, the third, “lower layer” is the “slowest”, designed for long-term storage of information. Personally, all this somehow reminds us of the cousin of the demon Maxwell, who instead of molecules sorts the "energy" of information.
In practice, it turned out the following: a Fiber Channel storage system with a capacity of three terabytes for level 1 and SATA drives with nine terabytes for level 3 storage. However, all the “salt” lies in the nuances, namely, in software designed for data management. The Dell Compellent Data Progression is responsible for the automatic analysis of the circulation frequency and other factors that determine which particular layer needs to be written to. In turn, Fast Track allows you to "finish" the technology, not at the volume level, but at the level of each disk. The essence of the approach is the dynamic physical placement of the requested data on the external hard tracks. This allows you to increase the access speed not only due to the fact that the reading head does not need to "rush" in search of recorded blocks. Generally, fragmentation of data becomes smaller, which means that when reading a disk, it will be necessary to make fewer revolutions, which ultimately leads to energy savings. In the context of Wholesale Electric data, the need for access to which often arises, as well as data designated as critical for business, are at the first level, while the rest are automatically moved to the third without the intervention of IT personnel. Now at the 3rd level is about 80% of the company's data. All this allowed to increase the overall utilization of resources from 30-35% to 75%. the rest are automatically moved to the third without the intervention of IT staff. Now at the 3rd level is about 80% of the company's data. All this allowed to increase the overall utilization of resources from 30-35% to 75%. the rest are automatically moved to the third without the intervention of IT staff. Now at the 3rd level is about 80% of the company's data. All this allowed to increase the overall utilization of resources from 30-35% to 75%.
But no matter how wonderful the storage system was organized, efforts will sink into oblivion, if the possibility of quick recovery of information in the event of an accident is not provided. For these purposes, Wholesale Electric uses Dell Compellent Data Instant Replay. This tool is designed to create local copies (snapshots of the file system) of all virtual machines; copies are made once a day for non-critical volumes and every three hours for mission-critical databases. In addition, volumes that the company has identified as critical are replicated to individual storage capacities on the storage network for disaster recovery using Dell Compellent Remote Instant Replay.
In the dry residue
What are the results? Perhaps the most important thing is what the company's infrastructure today is. According to Bill Fyfe, each benefited from this in his own way: finances benefited from reduced energy consumption, employees benefited from increased speed and stability. And of course, IT people won the most: they received not only an increase in capacity, but also a stable replicated system that could recover within tens of minutes. In other words, we can say that the IT department is in some way finally at rest. Is this not the most desirable state in the universe?
