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HPE SimpliVity systems rescue Alberta Union from disaster recovery fear
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Applicable Industries
- Professional Service
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
The Challenge
The IT team at the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) was in search of a Storage Area Network (SAN) solution that would meet their needs for storage consolidation, efficient tier-1 backups, and disaster recovery. This need became especially clear when the AUPE’s main building was flooded during an icy Alberta winter, causing significant damage to their data center. The team spent over 18 months meeting with various vendors and suppliers and conducting audits of AUPE’s requirements. They eventually realized that a SAN purchase alone would not meet all of AUPE’s needs. In addition to storage consolidation, they needed a solution that could handle their backup, replication, and remote office management challenges. They were also facing servers and computers that needed to be refreshed and found it difficult to predict growth and expand storage.
About The Customer
The Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) is a trade union based in Edmonton, Alberta. The union has 175 staff members spread across 10 locations and serves between 85,000 to 90,000 members. The members of AUPE include employees in the provincial government, corrections, healthcare, education, government boards, agencies, and social work. The union is responsible for negotiating and enforcing collective agreements. The IT team at AUPE is small, consisting of only six people, and they were facing challenges with their existing storage and backup solutions.
The Solution
The AUPE decided to implement the HPE SimpliVity system at their primary site in Edmonton and at a remote/Disaster Recovery site in Calgary, 300 km (180 miles) from the primary site. The HPE SimpliVity solution offered a reduced footprint, an efficient way to snapshot and store images, and a growth path. It also increased application performance, especially for the union’s financial system, leading to happier users and fewer help desk calls. The union was able to eliminate at least 40% of its hardware requirements in data center racks, and they expect to cut even more hardware as they continue to move Tier-1 applications to HPE SimpliVity. The solution also provided a 26:1 deduplication ratio with inline deduplication.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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