Cloud computing is transforming how businesses run their applications.
Join us as we present the latest insights on why and how businesses are
using cloud computing applications. You’ll hear the latest industry trends
and get practical strategies around adoption success. Can cloud computing
give you the security and trust you require while providing you with
scalable solutions?
How to create a secure high performance storage and compute infrastructureAbhishek Sood
Creating a secure, high-performance enterprise storage system presents a number of challenges.
Without a high throughput, low latency connection between your SAN and your cloud compute infrastructure, your business will struggle to extract actionable insights in time to make the best decisions.
Download this white paper to discover technology designed to deliver maximum storage and compute capacity for enterprises, with massive data stores, that need to solve business problems fast without compromising the security of user information.
Mohave County Arizona Experiences Software-Defined Storage with DataCoreDataCore Software
A virtualized software-defined storage solution enables this local government to minimize downtime related to storage hardware migrations. Mohave County is a local government entity in northwestern Arizona. Mohave County through their experience has become a vocal advocate of Software-Defined Storage (SDS), giving DataCore a “5” or “Excellent” rating (on a scale of 1-5) in response to the question “How well has DataCore delivered Software-Defined Storage to your organization?”
With rapid business expansion through acquisitions and organic growth, City and County Healthcare Group wanted to redesign its IT infrastructure. Local servers at branch offices were becoming harder to manage as the company's geographical reach expanded, so the lean IT team wanted to find an easier way to maintain availability and performance for core business applications by developing on a robust and scalable centralized platform.
Cloud computing is transforming how businesses run their applications.
Join us as we present the latest insights on why and how businesses are
using cloud computing applications. You’ll hear the latest industry trends
and get practical strategies around adoption success. Can cloud computing
give you the security and trust you require while providing you with
scalable solutions?
How to create a secure high performance storage and compute infrastructureAbhishek Sood
Creating a secure, high-performance enterprise storage system presents a number of challenges.
Without a high throughput, low latency connection between your SAN and your cloud compute infrastructure, your business will struggle to extract actionable insights in time to make the best decisions.
Download this white paper to discover technology designed to deliver maximum storage and compute capacity for enterprises, with massive data stores, that need to solve business problems fast without compromising the security of user information.
Mohave County Arizona Experiences Software-Defined Storage with DataCoreDataCore Software
A virtualized software-defined storage solution enables this local government to minimize downtime related to storage hardware migrations. Mohave County is a local government entity in northwestern Arizona. Mohave County through their experience has become a vocal advocate of Software-Defined Storage (SDS), giving DataCore a “5” or “Excellent” rating (on a scale of 1-5) in response to the question “How well has DataCore delivered Software-Defined Storage to your organization?”
With rapid business expansion through acquisitions and organic growth, City and County Healthcare Group wanted to redesign its IT infrastructure. Local servers at branch offices were becoming harder to manage as the company's geographical reach expanded, so the lean IT team wanted to find an easier way to maintain availability and performance for core business applications by developing on a robust and scalable centralized platform.
IT leaders are adopting hybrid cloud services at a rapid pace to increase business agility and cost containment. According to a February 2016 IDG study on Hybrid Cloud Computing, up to 83 percent of C-level respondents use or plan to use a hybrid cloud.27 Transforming IT service delivery to a hybrid cloud consumption model is the clear path for the vast majority of organizations. The bigger issue is how quickly an organization can change.
While building your own hybrid cloud solution may seem attractive, you should seriously evaluate the challenges such an option presents to already overextended IT staff resources. As detailed in this paper, organizations must be prepared for the likelihood of higher costs, longer deployments, and greater risks than they may initially expect. In addition, the IT community as a whole is rapidly moving away from integrating components and delivering services manually to a more strategic focus on providing high-value services to businesses.
The race to deliver cloud-native applications and services to the business demands that traditional IT services and applications either evolve to a hybrid cloud consumption model or risk placing the business at a competitive disadvantage. An engineered solution not only saves time, money, and resources but also allows your IT staff to focus on innovation and delivering IT services that increase business value and align with the evolving marketplace of IT services for enterprise-level organizations.
Organizations should seize the opportunity to achieve the transformational efficiencies the hybrid cloud can deliver. When planning your journey, consider buying rather than building your own solution to speed time to value, minimize expenditures, and reduce risk.
Bilcare Cost Effectively Scales For Business GrowthBilcare Research
Bilcare Research Cost-Effectively Scales for Business Growth with Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Integrated Virtualization. For More log on to White Papers http://www.bilcare.com/
The promise of cloud computing is realized because of its
essential fundamentals—standardization of infrastructure,
virtualized resources and automated processes—and the
business results are measurable. Cloud computing represents
a paradigm shift at many levels, but the ‘return on investment’
that cloud customers are realizing cannot be overstated.
Value Journal, a monthly news journal from Redington Value Distribution, intends to update the channel on the latest vendor news and Redington Value’s Channel Initiatives.
Key stories from the September Edition:
•Oracle Autonomous Database Cloud Service Now Available
•Dell EMC introduces latest Integrated Data Protection Appliance
•Oracle Autonomous Database
•Capitalizing on Cloud Success - Cherian John, Vice President,Converged Infrastructure Systems,Redington Value
•Talend appoints Redington Value as Middle East and Africa VAD
•Huawei, Ivanti partner to maximize endpoint security for enterprises
•Veritas unveils NetBackup 8.1.2 with improved user interface
•Symantec offers free checkup for VPNFilter menace on routers
•Cisco announces intent to acquire Duo Security
•Check Point research reveals how criminals take over networks through fax machines
•Fortinet report reveals home IoT devices are latest cryptojacking targets
•Mimecast unveils second-annual state of email security report
•SonicWall report raises alarm on encrypted threats and chip-based attacks
•Red Hat announces Ansible Engine 2.6 availability
FICO with VMware Virtualization TechnologyMainstay
FICO is a world leader in decision management and predictive analytics. Their investment in VMware virtualization technology allowed the company to consolidate its sprawling IT infrastructure, automate system management tasks, boost availability and shrink energy consumption, while allowing it to deploy state-of-the-art cloud computing environment to speed product development worldwide.
The Data Center Is The Heartbeat of Today's IT Transformation (ENT215) | AWS ...Amazon Web Services
(Presented by CoreSite) The cloud-enabled data center sits at the center of IT transformation. It facilitates the interconnection and communities that come together, propelling growth for both buyers and sellers. Learn how CoreSite is bringing together best-of-breed partners through the Open Cloud Exchange, resulting in public, private, and hybrid IT interconnection and management as well as integration of AWS Direct Connect.
Over the last decade, cloud computing has transformed the market for IT services. But the journey to cloud adoption has not been without its share of twists and turns. This report looks at lessons that can be derived from companies' experiences implementing cloud computing technology.
IT leaders are adopting hybrid cloud services at a rapid pace to increase business agility and cost containment. According to a February 2016 IDG study on Hybrid Cloud Computing, up to 83 percent of C-level respondents use or plan to use a hybrid cloud.27 Transforming IT service delivery to a hybrid cloud consumption model is the clear path for the vast majority of organizations. The bigger issue is how quickly an organization can change.
While building your own hybrid cloud solution may seem attractive, you should seriously evaluate the challenges such an option presents to already overextended IT staff resources. As detailed in this paper, organizations must be prepared for the likelihood of higher costs, longer deployments, and greater risks than they may initially expect. In addition, the IT community as a whole is rapidly moving away from integrating components and delivering services manually to a more strategic focus on providing high-value services to businesses.
The race to deliver cloud-native applications and services to the business demands that traditional IT services and applications either evolve to a hybrid cloud consumption model or risk placing the business at a competitive disadvantage. An engineered solution not only saves time, money, and resources but also allows your IT staff to focus on innovation and delivering IT services that increase business value and align with the evolving marketplace of IT services for enterprise-level organizations.
Organizations should seize the opportunity to achieve the transformational efficiencies the hybrid cloud can deliver. When planning your journey, consider buying rather than building your own solution to speed time to value, minimize expenditures, and reduce risk.
Bilcare Cost Effectively Scales For Business GrowthBilcare Research
Bilcare Research Cost-Effectively Scales for Business Growth with Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Integrated Virtualization. For More log on to White Papers http://www.bilcare.com/
The promise of cloud computing is realized because of its
essential fundamentals—standardization of infrastructure,
virtualized resources and automated processes—and the
business results are measurable. Cloud computing represents
a paradigm shift at many levels, but the ‘return on investment’
that cloud customers are realizing cannot be overstated.
Value Journal, a monthly news journal from Redington Value Distribution, intends to update the channel on the latest vendor news and Redington Value’s Channel Initiatives.
Key stories from the September Edition:
•Oracle Autonomous Database Cloud Service Now Available
•Dell EMC introduces latest Integrated Data Protection Appliance
•Oracle Autonomous Database
•Capitalizing on Cloud Success - Cherian John, Vice President,Converged Infrastructure Systems,Redington Value
•Talend appoints Redington Value as Middle East and Africa VAD
•Huawei, Ivanti partner to maximize endpoint security for enterprises
•Veritas unveils NetBackup 8.1.2 with improved user interface
•Symantec offers free checkup for VPNFilter menace on routers
•Cisco announces intent to acquire Duo Security
•Check Point research reveals how criminals take over networks through fax machines
•Fortinet report reveals home IoT devices are latest cryptojacking targets
•Mimecast unveils second-annual state of email security report
•SonicWall report raises alarm on encrypted threats and chip-based attacks
•Red Hat announces Ansible Engine 2.6 availability
FICO with VMware Virtualization TechnologyMainstay
FICO is a world leader in decision management and predictive analytics. Their investment in VMware virtualization technology allowed the company to consolidate its sprawling IT infrastructure, automate system management tasks, boost availability and shrink energy consumption, while allowing it to deploy state-of-the-art cloud computing environment to speed product development worldwide.
The Data Center Is The Heartbeat of Today's IT Transformation (ENT215) | AWS ...Amazon Web Services
(Presented by CoreSite) The cloud-enabled data center sits at the center of IT transformation. It facilitates the interconnection and communities that come together, propelling growth for both buyers and sellers. Learn how CoreSite is bringing together best-of-breed partners through the Open Cloud Exchange, resulting in public, private, and hybrid IT interconnection and management as well as integration of AWS Direct Connect.
Over the last decade, cloud computing has transformed the market for IT services. But the journey to cloud adoption has not been without its share of twists and turns. This report looks at lessons that can be derived from companies' experiences implementing cloud computing technology.
The mobile space is exploding and affiliates need to avoid mistakes and move quickly to generate revenue. Discuss practical case studies and learn from our real-life client examples.
Experience level: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced
Target audience: Affiliate/Publisher, Merchant/Advertiser
Niche/vertical: Mobile
Jeff Stevens, Director of Sales, DirectTrack (Twitter @jstevnz )
If you’re responsible for creating diverse, scalable automated tests but don’t have the time, budget, or a skilled-enough team to create yet another custom test automation framework, then you need to know about Robot Framework!
In this webinar, Bryan Lamb (Founder, RobotFrameworkTutorial.com) and Chris Broesamle (Solutions Engineer, Sauce Labs) will reveal how you can use this powerful, free, open source, generic framework to create continuous automated regression tests for web, batch, API, or database testing. With the simplicity of Robot Framework, in conjunction with Sauce Labs, you can improve your test coverage and time to delivery of your applications.
Management 315: International Management, Professor In Hyeock Lee
Loyola University Chicago Spring 2013
This case study analyzes Honda's overall performance as a multinational enterprise using the company's revenue data, 4 distances, firm specific advantages, country specific advantages, foreign direct investment, and much more.
Sham Hassan Chikkegowda, CS Engineer, and Timothee Maret, Senior Developer, of Adobe provide a review of using Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) with your Experience Manager deployments. SAML is an XML-based, open-standard data format for exchanging authentication and authorization data between parties, in particular, between an identity provider and a service provider. SAML is a product of the OASIS Security Services Technical Committee. To watch the session on demand at http://bit.ly/AEMGems72016 or the MP4 version http://bit.ly/AEMGem72016
Redefining HCI: How to Go from Hyper Converged to Hybrid Cloud InfrastructureNetApp
The hyper converged infrastructure (HCI) market is entering a new phase of maturity. A modern HCI solution requires a private cloud platform that integrates with public clouds to create a consistent hybrid multi-cloud experience.
During this webinar, NetApp and an IDC guest speaker covered what led to the next generation of hyper converged infrastructure and which five capabilities are required to go from hyper converged to hybrid cloud infrastructure.
See how AWPRx used Jitterbit to succesfully move its business to the cloud. Jitterbit was used to migrate, synchronize, and replicate data between force.com, private clouds, and Salesforce.
If you visit Revlon, Inc.’s data center in Oxford, North Carolina, don’t blink, or you’ll miss the infrastructure. Just two racks house roughly 3.6PB and 800 virtual servers that process an average of 14,000 transactions per second (TPS) from systems around the world, with 99.9999% uptime. When people walk into our data center, they ask, “That’s it?” The answer is yes, and it runs everything. Find out more about Revlon and NetApp here: http://www.netapp.com/us/campaigns/builton/?REF_SOURCE=smctwitter-initiative-builton
Accelerating Cloud Data Warehouse Adoption using Hexaware’s Cloud EDMAHexaware Technologies
Hexaware assessed the current data landscape for the US arm of one of the largest stock exchanges in Europe and came up with an option to build a highly scalable and agile data warehouse on cloud leveraging their Cloud EDMA platform.
Azure Migration
Azure migration is the process of moving your workloads to the Azure cloud. This can include migrating your infrastructure, databases, and applications. Azure migration can help you improve your scalability, reliability, and security, while also reducing your costs. Csharptek is a trusted microsoft solution partner in Digital and Innovation (Azure)for Azure migration. We have a team of experienced and certified Azure professionals who can help you with every aspect of your migration. We offer a variety of services to meet your needs, and we're committed to helping you achieve your business goals.
Risc and velostrata 2 28 2018 lessons_in_cloud_migrationRISC Networks
Learn how to accelerate and
de-risk your cloud migration project
Despite the surge in enterprises migrating applications to the public cloud, more than half of all projects are delayed or over budget and an even greater number are more difficult than expected.1
Cloud Migrations don’t begin when you start moving applications into the cloud. They begin with your application landscape discovery and assessment. The second phase comprises the actual migration where applications are moved to the public cloud. Working with purpose-built enterprise-grade cloud migration platforms, especially those that partner to integrate both phases greatly simplifies and accelerates projects.
RISC Networks and Velostrata have teamed up to deliver this webinar where we’ll share real-world examples, tips, and tricks on crafting a seamless cloud migration from start to completion.
Value Journal, a monthly news journal from Redington Value Distribution, intends to update the channel on the latest vendor news and Redington Value’s Channel Initiatives.
Key stories from the August Edition:
•AWS Announces General Availability of AWS IoT SiteWise
•Dell Technologies Explores VMware Spin-Off
•HPE To Drive Edge-to-Cloud Strategy With Acquisition Of Silver Peak
•Oracle Announces Oracle Dedicated Region Cloud@Customer
•Fortinet Acquires Cloud Security and Networking Innovator OPAQ Networks
•Nexthink Launches Experience Platform
•Nutanix Sheds Light On Smart City Development Expectations
•Palo Alto Networks Launches World’s First ML-Powered NGFW
•57% of UAE IT Heads See Challenge In Gaining Holistic Network Visibility: VMware
•Mimecast Acquires MessageControl
•Cybersecurity Top Priority In COVID-19 Recovery: CrowdStrike Report
•Cohesity Launches Consumption-Based Subscription Pricing for MSP Partner
•Kaspersky’s New VPN Secure Connection Ensures User Privacy
•Veeam Announces New Competencies To EMEA ProPartner Program
•82% of UAE Remote Workers Have Gained Cybersecurity Awareness: Trend Micro
•Imperva Unveils Cloud Data Security Solution
Cloud computing case studies with ProfitBricks IaaSProfitBricks
ProfitBricks cloud computing case study with one cloud user in the USA (Cloud Pharmaceuticals) and one in Germany (DriveNow). Cloud case studies include cloud use cases and cloud architecture overviews presented at Cloud Expo Santa Clara.
Cloud computing adoption in sap technologiessveldanda
Cloud computing is emerging as an exciting trend in the ICT and with this presentation we tried to explore opportunities of adopting Cloud computing in SAP Technologies
Why would you should trust Stack Harbor with your Data
The Most performance and security oriented Canadian cloud company.
Learn more about our all SSD instances comparable and outperforming AWS, Azure, soft layer, iWeb etc..
Learn how to Build a Smarter Data Center with Juniper Networks Qfabric. This IBM Redguide publication highlights the key requirements for a smarter data center and shows how the characteristics of the data center fabric, a new switching architecture, provide the performance, scalability, flexibility, and manageability that is required. For more information on SAP HANA, visit http://ibm.co/1brCGOt.
Visit http://on.fb.me/LT4gdu to 'Like' the official Facebook page of IBM India Smarter Computing.
Overview of Cloud Computing from the CFO perspective. Focuses on business advantages, costs, risks, and organizational impact across a wide range of emerging platforms.
When it comes to the cloud, Gartner may have said it best:
“By 2020, a corporate ‘no-cloud’ policy will be as rare as a corporate ‘no-internet’ policy is today.”
If your organization is still skeptical of the cloud, now is the time to take a closer look. Faster implementation timelines and reduced maintenance costs are just two reasons why the cloud is becoming the standard across all industries.
In our webinar, we dispelled common concerns and explored the benefits of operating in the cloud. We also provided real-world examples of companies that have taken the leap and discovered just how much better business works in the cloud.
- Craft a compelling RFP Executive Summary that includes quantified measures of business impact and KPIs.
- Prepare a Business Value Assessment (BVA) of their existing solution’s business value.
- Executive-ready presentation that is included as an appendix to the RFP.
- Providing existing RFP customers with a “cost to conduct an RFP” calculator.
- Estimate the full cost of going out to multiple RFPs.
Working with the Mainstay team, the Cisco IOT Manufacturing Marketing team combined research from manufacturing trade associations, management consulting research and an internal benchmarking project to create an Executive Briefing Presentation that would educate CxOs on the opportunities IOT can provide. This content was also repurposed to create a manufacturing IOT whitepaper to provide an asset to entice prospective customers to consider Cisco’s IOT offerings.
Kofax turned to Mainstay to help define the key value drivers and impact levels to help promote their Claims Automation Solution. Working closely with Kofax’s product team and working with key customer references, Mainstay was able to build a very compelling infographic that provides a simple, rapid way to digest a very complex solution.
Mainstay was introduced to Bluewolf through their relationship with Oracle and brought our team in to help capture the business value story at Kele. Working with the Bluewolf sales team and the Kele project sponsor, Mainstay was able to develop a quantitative view of the business value achieved. The story focused on the impact of developing a marketing automation solution to benefit Kele’s customers by providing greater customer support and a deeper partnership with their clients.
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
Accelerate your Kubernetes clusters with Varnish CachingThijs Feryn
A presentation about the usage and availability of Varnish on Kubernetes. This talk explores the capabilities of Varnish caching and shows how to use the Varnish Helm chart to deploy it to Kubernetes.
This presentation was delivered at K8SUG Singapore. See https://feryn.eu/presentations/accelerate-your-kubernetes-clusters-with-varnish-caching-k8sug-singapore-28-2024 for more details.
Search and Society: Reimagining Information Access for Radical FuturesBhaskar Mitra
The field of Information retrieval (IR) is currently undergoing a transformative shift, at least partly due to the emerging applications of generative AI to information access. In this talk, we will deliberate on the sociotechnical implications of generative AI for information access. We will argue that there is both a critical necessity and an exciting opportunity for the IR community to re-center our research agendas on societal needs while dismantling the artificial separation between the work on fairness, accountability, transparency, and ethics in IR and the rest of IR research. Instead of adopting a reactionary strategy of trying to mitigate potential social harms from emerging technologies, the community should aim to proactively set the research agenda for the kinds of systems we should build inspired by diverse explicitly stated sociotechnical imaginaries. The sociotechnical imaginaries that underpin the design and development of information access technologies needs to be explicitly articulated, and we need to develop theories of change in context of these diverse perspectives. Our guiding future imaginaries must be informed by other academic fields, such as democratic theory and critical theory, and should be co-developed with social science scholars, legal scholars, civil rights and social justice activists, and artists, among others.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
Kubernetes & AI - Beauty and the Beast !?! @KCD Istanbul 2024Tobias Schneck
As AI technology is pushing into IT I was wondering myself, as an “infrastructure container kubernetes guy”, how get this fancy AI technology get managed from an infrastructure operational view? Is it possible to apply our lovely cloud native principals as well? What benefit’s both technologies could bring to each other?
Let me take this questions and provide you a short journey through existing deployment models and use cases for AI software. On practical examples, we discuss what cloud/on-premise strategy we may need for applying it to our own infrastructure to get it to work from an enterprise perspective. I want to give an overview about infrastructure requirements and technologies, what could be beneficial or limiting your AI use cases in an enterprise environment. An interactive Demo will give you some insides, what approaches I got already working for real.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series, part 3DianaGray10
Welcome to UiPath Test Automation using UiPath Test Suite series part 3. In this session, we will cover desktop automation along with UI automation.
Topics covered:
UI automation Introduction,
UI automation Sample
Desktop automation flow
Pradeep Chinnala, Senior Consultant Automation Developer @WonderBotz and UiPath MVP
Deepak Rai, Automation Practice Lead, Boundaryless Group and UiPath MVP
1. DCI CASE STUDY
NETAPP BENEFITS SERIES
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Company Name:
DCI
Website URL: www.datacenterinc.com
Industry: High Technology/
Financial Services
Employees: 300
HIGHLIGHTS
NetApp Solution:
■■ NetApp®
FAS3140, FA2050, and FAS2020
systems with NetApp Snapshot™ and
deduplication technologies, SnapManager®
for Microsoft SQL Server, SnapManager
for Microsoft Exchange, SnapManager for
Virtual Infrastructure, SnapManager for
Oracle, SnapMirror®
, SnapRestore®
,
FlexClone®
, FlexVol®
, SnapVault®
, SnapDrive®
,
SnapLock®
Enterprise, Operations Manager,
and Protection Manager software
Key Benefits:
Financial:
■■ On track to achieve 40% ROI over four
years on $1.3M investment with payback
within 23 months
■■ Improved storage administration productivity
by the equivalent of one employee;
$95K personnel cost optimization
■■ Avoided hiring two storage administrators,
saving $720K over three years
■■ Saved $47K in annual traveling costs and
lost productivity
■■ Saved $108K in energy costs over four years
■■ Avoided $45K in WAN costs over four years
DCI Contains IT Sprawl, Improves Business Continuity
with Virtualized NetApp Platform; 40% ROI and 23-Month
Payback Projected
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
One of the nation’s first bank technology
companies, Kansas-based DCI, provides
core banking services to nearly 200
community banks around the country. To
satisfy the high-volume data-processing
requirements of its bank clients, DCI’s IT
platform has to be ultradependable and
fast. DCI managed to achieve high
processing performance over the years,
but it took increasing amounts of hardware
sprawled over several data centers.
Eventually, the company realized that
it needed to rein in its server and
storage infrastructure to control costs,
better safeguard data, and support
next-generation Web-based products
and services. With the help of ISG
Technology, Inc., a leading Midwestern
“ Our objective was to ensure rapid data restore and
DR support for our customers, and the NetApp and
VMware infrastructure enabled us to achieve this.”
– Robert Ross, SVP of Network/Technical Services
and Chief Security Officer
- 1 -
2. DCI CASE STUDY
NETAPP BENEFITS SERIES
computer technology firm, DCI chose
to build a highly virtualized server and
storage environment based on NetApp
and VMware technology. Today, the new
platform supports DCI’s major business
applications, databases, and systems,
including its flagship iCore360®
application,
Microsoft SQL and Exchange servers,
Citrix, Blackberry, and more.
The move to a VMware on NetApp platform
enabled DCI to consolidate its IT infrastructure
on 80% fewer servers, cutting energy
consumption and allowing the company
to administer the whole environment with
significantly fewer resources. Furthermore,
it built a fully automated, centralized disaster
recovery center in Oklahoma City and
adopted consistent data-backup processes
companywide. All of these moves have added
new levels of reliability and scalability to the
firm’s IT backbone, laying the foundation for
the company’s move into IT-as-a-Service
and cloud computing services.
According to an assessment by Mainstay
Partners, the NetApp investment has put
DCI on track to realize total benefits of
approximately $2.1M over four years,
including savings from avoiding outlays
for an alternative high-availability system
and savings from productivity gains,
hardware consolidation, and lower energy
consumption. The result: DCI is expected
to realize a 40% ROI over four years and
to break even in 23 months.
CUSTOMER PROFILE
Formed in 1963 by four Kansas bankers,
DCI was the first bank technology company
of its kind west of the Mississippi and remains
unique in ownership, history, and product
offering. Today, DCI is still a private company
with many client banks as shareholders
and board members, making the company
more directly responsive to the needs of all
their clients.
DCI serves nearly 200 community banks
nationwide and enjoys a consistent contract
renewal rate of over 95%. DCI’s reputation
is one of quality service, innovative develop-
ment, and collaborative focus on the needs
of their community bank clients.
DCI’s product offering includes iCore360°,
their latest ASP .NET system for complete
core processing, bank management, and
automation. Designed by banks to automate
and streamline the workflow, iCore360° is
delivered via an ordinary PC and Internet
browser, requiring no software installation
or costly servers.
THE CHALLENGE
The financial institutions that depend on DCI
are among the most demanding customers
around. They execute millions of dollars of
transactions every day—everything from
checking deposits to loan processing—
using DCI’s computing resources and
iCore360° applications. These banks
can’t afford system downtime or the loss
of critical financial data, which can have
an immediate impact on the business.
To ensure that the company could run its
business without downtime or data loss that
would impact their customers, DCI built a
large IT network spanning data centers in
three states and a disaster recovery site in
Oklahoma. But as DCI’s business expanded,
so did its data-processing and storage needs.
“Storage was just growing all over the
Reduction in
SA server
provisioning time
90%
Reduction in
overall SA time
on maintenance
Reduction in
database recovering
and testing effort
93%
Increase in
data recovery
success rate
99%
Reduction in
DBA provisioning
workload
Reduction in
capacity optimization
cycle times
50%
60%
Reduction in
the number
of servers
Reduction in
the number
of racks
80%
56%
Reduction in
SA server
provisioning time
90%
75%
Operational Benefits
With the VMware on NetApp infrastructure, DCI realized significant operational benefits and improvements,
positioning the company for future growth.
Figure 1
- 2 -
3. DCI CASE STUDY
NETAPP BENEFITS SERIES
place,” said Robert Ross, DCI’s Senior Vice
President of Network/Technical Services
and Chief Security Officer. The challenge
was compounded by occasional disk-drive
replacement and a backup strategy that
relied heavily on inefficient tape drives at
remote sites.
Maintaining efficient data backup and
recovery capabilities was a key concern,
in part because of new regulatory require-
ments designed to tighten information
management in the financial services
sector. DCI also wanted to improve the
efficiency of IT and thereby control costs.
Administrators were spending too much
time backing up DCI’s data, and recovery
performance was less than optimal. “We
had to offer a better business continuity
environment to give customers the backup
capabilities they needed,” Ross said.
The sprawling infrastructure also burdened
DCI’s environment in Denver with steep
maintenance costs and high energy bills.
Basic IT administration tasks like database
and server provisioning, and data backup
and recovery testing, were becoming a
costly time sink.
All of these factors threatened DCI’s
strategic growth potential and the
company’s plans to deliver services using
new technologies like cloud computing.
“We wanted better growth management,”
Ross said, “including the ability to deliver
a flexible IT solution and offer our version
of cloud computing as an IT service.”
WHY VMWARE ON NETAPP?
DCI engaged ISG Technology, Inc. to examine
the potential of virtualization to overcome the
technical limitations and rising costs of the
existing infrastructure. ISG is an IT solutions
provider and a trusted advisor to DCI. After
reviewing DCI’s architecture and capacity,
the firm proposed a major overhaul, employing
virtualization technology from VMware and
NetApp to consolidate the company’s 28
servers into a lean, flexible platform composed
of just six physical servers connected to a
centralized, shared storage area network (SAN).
NetApp’s network-based shared storage
was an essential component of DCI’s
virtualization plan because without it,
many business-continuity features of
a virtualized environment—including
distributed resource management,
high availability, and advanced VMware
features like vMotion—would have been
impossible to implement. NetApp’s
storage management capabilities also
enabled a cost-effective disaster recovery
model known as virtual-to-virtual DR,
which provides enterprise-class disaster
recovery at a low cost.
DCI ruled out the option of beefing up its
nonvirtualized architecture because of the
prohibitive cost. In fact, an analysis showed
that to match the DR and backup capabilities
of the VMware on NetApp platform, DCI
would need to double the number of servers,
add three employees to administer the extra
machines, upgrade its wide area network
(WAN), and spend significantly more on
energy costs. The total cost of the expanded
platform would have exceeded $1M.
Choosing the virtualization strategy, DCI
moved ahead with ISG’s recommendations,
installing VMware ESX virtual servers and
NetApp FAS systems at its data centers.
According to Ross, “we integrated both
at the same time to give us the ability to
integrate our data, create an extremely
reliable business-continuity environment,
and support the technological innovations
needed to drive new business initiatives
such as cloud-based service delivery.”
With ISG’s assistance, the project moved
quickly: DCI’s Hutchison (Kansas) data
center went virtual in October 2008;
Commerce (California) and Golden (Colorado)
in June 2009; and Oklahoma City in August
2009. “ISG had a fast-start program that
enabled us to complete the project very
efficiently, rapidly, and successfully,” Ross
said. “The implementation speed we were
able to attain was amazing.”
The move to the VMware on NetApp
infrastructure achieved the company’s initial
business and technical objectives, allowing
DCI to virtualize and consolidate its Windows
“ ISG had a fast-start program that enabled us to complete
the project very efficiently, rapidly, and successfully.
The implementation speed we were able to attain
was amazing.”
– Robert Ross, SVP of Network/Technical Services
and Chief Security Officer
- 3 -
4. DCI CASE STUDY
NETAPP BENEFITS SERIES
environment and then monitor and dynamic-
ally configure the platform to better serve its
customers. The platform’s centrally managed,
virtualized storage infrastructure also allowed
DCI to adopt standard, consistent backup
processes across every site and to automate
disaster recovery processes. DCI now
encounters fewer errors during backups,
despite doubling the backup frequency.
“Our objective was to ensure rapid data
restore and DR support for our customers,
and the NetApp and VMware infrastructure
enabled us to achieve this,” Ross said.
Significant efficiency and productivity gains
are being achieved in the consolidated,
virtualized environment through the use
of NetApp software tools, including
SnapManager for Oracle, SnapManager for
Exchange, SnapManager for SQL Server,
SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure,
Snapshot, SnapMirror, FlexVol, and FlexClone.
These software tools automate storage
management tasks, decrease backup times,
and optimize disk space in support of the
company’s business-critical iCore360°
banking applications, Microsoft SQL
databases, and other systems. Today,
DCI is managing more than 100 terabytes
of storage with one full-time employee.
BUSINESS BENEFITS
Mainstay Partners quantified the benefits
of DCI’s investment in the NetApp storage
solution and has projected more than
$800K in net savings over four years. The
following sections detail these benefits.
Infrastructure Optimization
The VMware on NetApp infrastructure
helped DCI shrink its hardware footprint
and contain server sprawl, enabling the
company to run its systems and applications
using fewer physical servers and storage
devices. For example, using NetApp’s
deduplication technology—which eliminates
multiple copies of data—DCI cut the amount
of storage space it consumes by 50%.1
It cut another 25% through the use of thin
provisioning, a NetApp technology that
lets administrators allocate only as much
storage space as is actually needed by
the operating systems and applications.
Overall, the virtualization project allowed
DCI to consolidate IT operations onto just
14 VMware ESX servers, an 80% reduction
in physical machines, as shown in Figure 2.
The move to VMware on NetApp also enabled
DCI to shut down three smaller processing
centers and helped DCI avoid outlays for
three new physical servers a year to keep
up with data-processing growth.
Improvement in Database
Recovery Time
Figure 3
2
30
NetApp
Environment
Previous
Environment
Time to Recover Database (in minutes)
Decrease in the Number
of Physical Servers
Figure 2
14
70
NetApp
Environment
Previous
Environment
Number of Servers
1
NetApp is the only storage technology that deduplicates primary data at the block level. These primary storage savings are subsequently multiplied and extended across the
storage environment during the backup, replication, disaster recovery, and archiving processes. Deduplicating also results in more rapid data replication routines.
“ We wanted better growth management, including
the ability to deliver a flexible IT solution and offer
our version of cloud computing as an IT service.”
– Robert Ross, SVP of Network/Technical Services
and Chief Security Officer
- 4 -
5. DCI CASE STUDY
NETAPP BENEFITS SERIES
Real Estate and Energy Savings
Today, the company’s IT infrastructure
consumes about 75% less floor space,
offering DCI the possibility of future savings
from real estate consolidation and sales.
The smaller hardware footprint also takes
less energy to power and cool. After
implementing its virtualized platform, the
company has seen power consumption
fall by 22%, saving an estimated $108K
in energy costs over four years while
also helping to cut carbon emissions.
Productivity Gains
The introduction of automated storage-
management tools like NetApp SnapManager,
SnapMirror, and FlexVol has significantly
boosted staff productivity. For example,
system administrators who used to spend
4–8 hours per day checking and trouble-
shooting backup jobs now use Snapshot
technology to do the same job in half the
time and without impacting system
performance. “NetApp Snapshot copies
eliminate the redundancy inherent in
traditional backups,” said Brock Benard,
DCI’s lead network engineer. “Snapshot
shortens backup windows and provides
100% data validation.” As a result of these
efficiency gains, DCI expects to forego
hiring two new administrators, saving
approximately $720K over three years.
Meanwhile, administrators are using
FlexVol to resize and optimize storage
capacity about 60% faster than before.
These efficiencies have resulted in
smoother-running applications and
have decreased the number of timeouts
affecting its mission-critical ATM
bank-machine applications.
More Reliable and
Rapid Data Recovery
With its NetApp storage infrastructure,
DCI now expects to take 93% less time to
perform Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and
Exchange Server database recoveries—
from 30 minutes down to just 2 minutes.
NetApp FlexClone technology, which creates
instant data copies, was seen as key to this
improvement. In addition, DCI was able
to start performing database recovery
testing remotely, which is saving the
company $47K over four years in travel
costs,2
as shown in Figure 4.
Data Recovery Time
Figure 4
4
0
1
2
3
4
.25
NetApp
Environment
Previous
Environment
RecoveryTime(inhours)
Figure 5
Decrease in Database
Provisioning Time
1
2
NetApp
Environment
Previous
Environment
Hours to Provision Database (in hours)
Figure 6
Decrease in Server
Provisioning Time
1
12
NetApp
Environment
Previous
Environment
Hours to Provision Server (in hours)
2
In the previous environment, six team members travelled to the Colorado data center for DR testing for one week each year, a trip that is no longer required.
“ NetApp Snapshot copies eliminate the redundancy
inherent in traditional backups. It shortens backup
windows and provides 100% data validation.”
– Brock Benard, Lead Network Engineer
- 5 -
6. DCI CASE STUDY
NETAPP BENEFITS SERIES
Data recovery performance has also
improved since moving to NetApp. With
NetApp Snapshot and SnapManager
for Virtual Infrastructure, DCI backs up
data faster and more frequently with little
impact to system performance. It also
improved average data recovery time
by more than 90%.
Faster Provisioning,
Easier Maintenance
Efficiency gains were reported by data-
base administrators who are now using
automated storage-management tools
to provision databases 50% faster. DBAs
also use NetApp FlexClone to rapidly
reload more than 30 databases during
disaster recovery testing. Over three
years, the company expects to save an
estimated $16K in DBA labor costs from
using these storage-optimization tools.
Similarly, system administrators in DCI’s
virtual environments are provisioning
servers in less than an hour — a job that
used to take 12 hours in the previous
environment. They are also spending 75%
less time performing routine maintenance
on servers, a productivity improvement
(valued at about $95K per year) that lets
SAs devote more time to higher-level tasks
like capacity planning, user support, and
data recovery.
Supporting Growth and
New Initiatives
A key driver behind DCI’s investment in
virtualization and NetApp was to create
a modern IT platform that could scale
to accommodate DCI’s strategic goals
and growth trajectory. The launch of a
dedicated disaster recovery center in
Oklahoma City, based on NetApp
technology, was a critical step in building
the new platform. The DR center provides
every office with reliable, consistent DR
capabilities and eliminates single points
of failure in the storage environment.
The enhanced DR environment, combined
with virtualization, is providing the foundation
of a high-availability platform that DCI needs
for future initiatives, including moving its
iCore360º product to a Web-based service
in 2010 by using .NET and Silverlight
technology.
DCI also hopes to utilize the virtualized
platform to launch IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS)
and private cloud service offerings, which
will depend on efficiently partitioning and
allocating parts of its infrastructure to
customers. As DCI’s Ross said, “Our
NetApp and VMware infrastructure is
the cornerstone for our future private
cloud and ITaaS initiatives.”
THE BOTTOM LINE
According to Mainstay’s assessment,
DCI will achieve 40% ROI in the first
four years on a $1.3M investment in
the NetApp platform and will realize
$2.1M in total benefits. The assessment
projects that the company will achieve
payback on its investment within 23
months. Figure 7 breaks down the
investment costs between hardware,
software, consulting, and other costs,
which include business and internal IT
resource costs for design, development
and training, and asset write-off costs.
Figure 8 summarizes the cost and benefits
over four years, and Table 1 breaks out
these figures on a yearly basis.
Figure 7
Investment Cost Breakdown
Other
9%
Software Cost
5%
Consulting
4%
Hardware Cost
82%
“ Our NetApp and VMware infrastructure is the
cornerstone for our future private cloud and
ITaaS initiatives.”
– Robert Ross, SVP of Network/Technical Services
and Chief Security Officer
- 6 -
7. DCI CASE STUDY
NETAPP BENEFITS SERIES
Summary of Costs and Benefits Over 4 Years
Figure 8
Financial Summary
Table 1
Initial Investment
2007 2008 2009 2010 Total
Hardware Cost $1,036,537 $0 $0 $0 $1,036,537
Software Cost $42,645 $8,295 $8,295 $8,295 $67,530
Miscellaneous Cost $62,000 $100,000 $0 $0 $162,000
Total Cost $1,141,182 $108,295 $8,295 $8,295 $1,266,067
Hardware Savings $0 $523,500 $268,500 $268,500 $1,060,500
Productivity Savings $0 $292,580 $292,580 $292,580 $877,740
Miscellaneous Savings $0 $51,000 $51,000 $51,000 $153,000
Total Benefits $0 $867,080 $612,080 $612,080 $2,091,240
Summary
Total Cost $1,266,067
Total Benefits $2,091,240
ROI 40%
Payback 23 months
Net BenefitsHardware
Savings
Productivity
Savings
Miscellaneous
Savings
Total
Investment
Miscellaneous
Costs
Software
Cost
Hardware
Cost
-$1,500,000
-$1,000,000
-$500,000
0
$500,000
$1,000,000
$1,500,000
-$1,036,537 -$67,539
-$162,000 -$1,266,067 $1,060,500
$877,740
$153,000
$825,173
$2,000,000
$2,500,000
- 7 -