case study on how Seric and IBM allowed University of Highlands and Islands to expand and upgrade their SAN on limited budget

1. a. Seric Systems Ltd, Studio 2004, Abbey Mill Business Centre, Mile End Building, 12 Seedhill Road, Paisley, PA1 1JS.
t. 0141 561 1161 e. info@seric.co.uk w. seric.co.uk tw. @sericsystems
IBM Storwize V7000
BRIEF
The University of Highlands and
Islands (UHI) needed to extend the
life of their existing SAN in both
capacity and performance. Having
two active live sites with two-way
replication between them meant that
any investment made on one site
would need a similar investment at
the other site.
UHI did not want to further invest in
their old outdated technology but
budget and staff limitations did not
allow the total replacement of the
SAN. UHI went to tender to find the
best solution to their predicament.
SOLUTION
The winning Seric solution was to
augment the existing SANs with the
IBM Storwize V7000. The IBM
Storwize V7000 was placed in front
of the existing SAN and a rolling
migration plan was put into place
allowing for the existing SAN disks to
be controlled by the IBM Storwize
V7000. This meant the existing SAN
disks could benefit from the
advanced functionality of the IBM
Storwize V7000, including thin
provisioning and EasyTier, the ability
to automatically move the most
accessed data (from the existing
SAN) onto the Solid State Disks
(SSDs) of the V7000, to benefit from
the additional performance. The
cross-site replication was also
moved to the IBM V7000 Storwize.
As part of the solution we included
consultancy and training to allow the
UHI staff to handle the migration and
management internally themselves.
OUTCOME
UHI achieved move capacity and
performance, allowing them to
continue to deliver and outstanding
service, at a fraction of the cost of a
full infrastructure refresh, while still
investing in the newest technology.
The Seric and IBM solution was the only one that fitted our tight
budget. We were concerned about losing functionality but we
haven’t lost any, in fact with have gained a lot more.”
Darryl Thompson, IT Operations Manager, The University of Highlands and Islands.
The University of
Highlands and Islands
Storage and Integrated Systems with Seric
PREDICTIVE
ANALYTICS
STORAGE AND
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SYSTEMS
DATA
MANAGMENT
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