“With SimpliVity our disaster recovery tests can take place in a controlled environment: you can move all VMs (virtual machines) from one node to another and make use of the backup site. In combination with this intelligent and efficient backup model, we chose SimpliVity as the main solution for our challenges.”
- Johan Verbeek, System Manager, Practimed
CHALLENGE
Practimed was running a traditional server infrastructure for several years, in combination with a traditional storage solution. When their hardware was due for replacement in 2014, they learned about SimpliVity at the booth of ICT integrator Simac during Storage Expo. It was the answer to many business problems for which they had previously sought a solution elsewhere. In particular, it offered ‘disaster recovery’ - being able to quickly and fully restore the most recent copy of the IT infrastructure in the event of a catastrophe – which is becoming increasingly important for every medical environment.
SOLUTION
The entire server and storage environment for the Bree and Tessenderlo sites was replaced by three Omnicubes, spread over two locations. Together they take up 6U of space in a standard rack. With this Omnicube, all standard functionality is provided, including server, storage and VMware Hypervisor. In the past, this required an almost complete server rack unto itself.
RESULTS
- Backup disaster recovery solution
With the new hyperconverged infrastructure, Practimed now has a fully redundant disaster recovery solution available. The client has two server rooms, spread over different locations. All data is synchronized daily from one location to the other, and vice versa. Due to the compression and deduplication, this is by no means a problem in terms of volume.
- Minimal downtime for critical applications
The Practimed lab is constantly running very critical applications. Every minute is precious. The lab receives more than 1,100 applications on a daily basis, possibly consisting of several samples, that must be processed the same day. With SimpliVity it is now possible to act quickly when problems occur so that the downtime remains minimal.
- Cost saving measures
The implementation of a SimpliVity Omnicube infrastructure has also saved a lot of cost. In terms of hardware, power consumption was significantly reduced due to a decreased number of devices. But perhaps the biggest savings were achieved in terms of management. This SimpliVity configuration offers much greater flexibility: in no time you can back up your machine and synchronize it to the remote site.
