Founded in 1682, Norfolk is now the second-largest city in Virginia. With more than 242,000 residents and a rich seafaring history, Norfolk is the cultural, educational, business and medical center of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area. Norfolk hosts the world’s largest naval base and is one of the busiest international ports on the East Coast of the United States. The City of Norfolk employs approximately 6,000 people—including the city IT department, which is responsible for storing and maintaining vast amounts of complex data generated and utilized in a dynamic 24x7 environment.

1. IBM Smarter Computing
IBM XIV puts the City
of Norfolk on the path to
IT transformation
Founded in 1682, Norfolk is now the second-largest city in Virginia.
Overview With more than 242,000 residents and a rich seafaring history, Norfolk
is the cultural, educational, business and medical center of the
The need Hampton Roads metropolitan area. Norfolk hosts the world’s largest
The City of Norfolk needed to increase its
storage capabilities to provide employees
naval base and is one of the busiest international ports on the East
and citizens with rapid, reliable services, Coast of the United States. The City of Norfolk employs approximately
as well as to shift the IT focus to delivering 6,000 people—including the city IT department, which is responsible
better performance and supporting new
for storing and maintaining vast amounts of complex data generated
services rather than managing storage.
and utilized in a dynamic 24x7 environment.
The solution
The city engaged in an IT transformation
by integrating its storage infrastructure on
Facing a storage conundrum
a single IBM® XIV® Storage System, Over time, the City of Norfolk’s IT department found itself facing a
enabling automated processes, improving storage conundrum. The city was experiencing exponential growth in
performance and security, and reducing
data volumes, and the existing SAN was rapidly running out of space.
energy consumption.
Meanwhile, new data-intensive applications were set to roll out as part
The benefit of the city’s ongoing efforts to improve the services they provide their
With the IBM solution, the City of Norfolk citizens. In particular, the impending launch of new major public safety
improved storage performance by 40
percent, cut power consumption in half, systems was poised to significantly inflate data volumes. The storage
and significantly reduced time spent on shortfall was further compounded by rapidly rising maintenance costs
storage management, freeing up IT and by power and cooling limitations in the data center.
resources to focus on delivering new
services.
After carefully evaluating five competing solutions, the best option to
address the city’s storage needs also turned out to be the most
affordable: IBM XIV Storage System. Says Bob Stone, senior network
engineer for the city, “We needed a system that was scalable and very
easy to manage, but on a very limited budget. When we started looking
at IBM XIV, it really seemed like it was either going to be the best thing
since sliced bread for us, or a lot of smoke and mirrors. And all I know
is what I saw—it was very easy to manage and provision. It’s been the
best decision I’ve made for the city as a network engineer in the 22
years I’ve been here.”

2. IBM Smarter Computing
After migrating to XIV, storage performance immediately surged 40
Integrated percent. Power and cooling costs plunged 50 percent compared with
• Implemented a storage solution from the previous SAN. And the advanced grid architecture of XIV means
IBM to integrate with existing higher resiliency and redundancy for critical data.
infrastructure
• Consolidated storage needs from a
wide variety of mission-critical Smarter storage that supports services city-wide
applications and data-intensive The XIV is the city’s central storage repository, supporting the city’s
systems onto one platform
PeopleSoft system, financial system, computer-aided dispatch system
Automated for the police department, Microsoft® Exchange e-mail server,
• Dramatically reduced storage geographic information system (GIS), police records, document
maintenance requirements, freeing up
IT resources for more high-value tasks
imaging system, public utilities database, billing system, and other
• Automated processes for storing, applications—including a total of 80 virtual machines. Since the initial
tagging and archiving data while rollout of the solution in 2009, the capacity of the XIV has more than
improving performance and reducing
doubled, from 27 to 67 terabytes.
energy consumption
Protected “One thing that’s not reducing in the city is our need for storage,”
• Improved the security and resilience of Stone says. “When we first bought the XIV, it was pretty much just for
data storage with real-time notification
capabilities applications. But here it is just two years later, and we’re dumping
• Boosted emergency UPS battery everything on the XIV: police cruiser videos, neighborhood surveillance
backup life from a few minutes to a full videos, e-mails and documents. We know that putting everything on the
nine minutes
XIV is the right decision because we no longer have to manage storage.
Transformed And as you add more disk it gets faster.”
• Removed barriers to progress by
accommodating new data-intensive
initiatives for police and other
The flexibility, scalability and speed of XIV has transformed Norfolk’s
departments storage infrastructure into a more integrated, automated and secure
• Benefitted operations across the city environment for both the IT department and the various city personnel
by improving storage performance by
who rely on the solution for their daily activities. It has also opened up
40 percent
storage services to more departments more quickly. “It definitely has
allowed us to be very flexible and reactive on a moment’s notice. We
never had the ability to quickly spin up storage like we can with our
XIV system,” says Stone.
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3. IBM Smarter Computing
New levels of security and resilience
Solution Components: XIV has also led to security and disaster recovery improvements for the
City of Norfolk. Because the XIV system uses 50 percent less energy
Hardware
• IBM® XIV® Storage System
than the previous SAN system, UPS batteries can now power the
system for nine minutes, compared to just a few minutes, as was
previously the case. And e-mail alerts let IT staff know in real time
when someone has logged in or out or made changes to the system.
The capability of XIV to preemptively recognize disk failure has been
another benefit, because it provides sufficient advance notice if a
replacement drive is needed. XIV also logs and time stamps every
change to every piece of data to help ensure that the city is compliant
with audit requirements. “It keeps an eye on itself,” says Stone.
Transforming IT into a driving force of city
operations
With the help of XIV, Norfolk’s IT department is transforming how it
supports the city. Since XIV has freed up a significant amount of time
for Stone and his staff, they can better focus on delivering quality
services, such as improving mobile connectivity in police cruisers. The
XIV system has also been architected to support important new
initiatives for the Norfolk Police Department, like the police in-car
video recording system and closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems.
The city’s latest initiatives include a system that monitors for the sound
of a gunshot in problem neighborhoods. Once detected, the system uses
the 911 dispatch center to automatically alert the nearest patrol car for
a rapid response.
These technologies generate large volumes of data with long retention
periods, but Stone says the city’s storage infrastructure is up to the task.
“It makes me really proud to know how the storage has benefited the
police in terms of speed, performance and availability—to know that
the information they need is always available to them and can get to the
cars so quickly,” he says. “It’s one piece of the IT infrastructure that
benefits the whole city.”
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4. For more information
To learn more about smarter computing from IBM and how we can
help you integrate, automate, protect and transform your IT, contact
your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit
ibm.com/smartercomputing
For more information about the City of Norfolk, visit www.norfolk.gov
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IBM Corporation
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Produced in the United States of America
February 2011
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