Qlogic SANbox 8200 Manual

CASE STUDY

Weizmann

Institute of

Science

Improving Datacenter Efﬁciency

by Combining the Power of

Virtualized Servers and Storage

Challenge

Reduce the cost and time needed to effectively manage

heterogeneous SAN-based storage resources across a

virtualized server environment

Solution

An affordable Integrated Business Solution featuring

QLogic SANbox 8200 Storage Services Platform and

StoreAge software

Results:

Quick and simple deployment, providing the Weizmann

Institute with centralized management of its heterogeneous

storage devices, while maintaining interoperability with

existing SAN infrastructure.

Background

A growing number of companies of all sizes are using virtualization technology as

a means to increase infrastructure ﬂexibility and utilization. These companies have

moved beyond the hype of virtualization and harnessed the technology into tangible

results. The resulting beneﬁts seem to be quite compelling as companies who

have become comfortable with the notion of virtualization, are quickly expanding

the use of virtualization technologies within their organizations.

The practical usefulness of virtualization technology extends well beyond large

Fortune 500 enterprises. The American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of

Science (ACWIS) is a prime example of a smaller organization reaping the rewards

of combining server and storage virtualization within a single data environment.

Virtualization has broad market appeal because the technology can be applied across

nearly any size and type of server or storage device. For example, larger RAID arrays

can be virtualized as easily as modular “Just a Bunch of Disks” (JBOD)

Challenge

Prior to looking at storage virtualization technology,ACWIS had already implemented

VMware to reduce the number of servers needed. With VMware, a single physical

server is partitioned into multiple virtual servers that run independently – even with

different operating systems. Fewer physical servers are needed, meaning overall

resource utilization is signiﬁcantly enhanced and management is simpliﬁed

Pleased with the results attained from server virtualization technology, ACWIS next

focused upon it’s storage environment.ACWIS was seeking to more effectively and

efﬁciently manage storage resources across their Storage Area Network (SAN).

They were having difﬁculty achieving the level of control and ﬂexibility desired in

allocating and provisioning storage to various server environments.

The American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science is enjoying

the dividends of leading the way with virtualization

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CASE STUDY

Solution

The required solution needed to simplify storage provisioning for all

storage connected to the SAN, while supporting the various server

operating environments including VMware, Windows, and Netware. In

addition, the solution needed to virtualize all storage resources, including

their principle RAID array.

ACWISimplementeda solutionbasedonQLogic’sStorageServicePlatform

running StoreAge’s management software, which provides a virtualized

storage environment for easier storage management,as well as mirroring,

snapshot and replication features for cost-effective replication and DR

capabilities. The integrated solution offers a highperformance, highly

available approach to deploying a variety of storage management and

data protection capabilities within any SAN environment. The combined

QLogic/StoreAge solution simpliﬁes deployment, providing a centralized

location to add and grow various storage services.

Beneﬁts

Using the integrated QLogic/StoreAge solution,ACWIS was able to achieve

their goal of simplifying storage management within their VMware virtual

server environment.“With the SANbox 8200 platform and StoreAge SVM,

adding and managing storage is more economical and simpler compared

to our previous proprietary solution.We can now add storage quickly and

easily to the SAN and partition it as needed to different virtual machines”

said Aron Morgulis, Director of IT.

Within the ACWIS environment, the solution lowered the cost of

storage management by reducing the complexity and time needed

to perform common and repetitive management tasks. Prior to

implementing the current SANbox 8200-based solution, ACWIS would

need to repeatedly bring additional physical storage capacity online

as needed, and then manage the storage on each separate system

independent of all other storage.

By adding the QLogic/StoreAge solution, ACWIS enjoys:

Fast and easy storage provisioning for virtualized server environments

Single management point for storage management

Capability to add complimentary data protection services such as

replication, mirroring and snapshot to bolster DR and backup.

ACWIS is well positioned to manage further storage and server growth

needs efﬁciently, because storage services are deployed in the storage

network independent of physical storage and server resources. This

provides ACWIS exceptional ﬂexibility to select bestof- breed storage

and server assets and avoid vendor-lockin which can be common when

deploying proprietary solutions.

•

Weizmann Institute of Science

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of their respective owners. Information supplied by QLogic is believed to be accurate and reliable. QLogic Corporation reserves the right, without notice, to makes changes in product design or speciﬁcations.

SNOO30982-00 Rev A 3/06

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