SUBSCRIBE TO TMCnet
TMCnet - World's Largest Communications and Technology Community

CHANNEL BY TOPICS


QUICK LINKS




BMC Software Taps StorSimple for Cloud Storage Solutions

TMCnews


TMCnews Featured Article


November 21, 2011

BMC Software Taps StorSimple for Cloud Storage Solutions

By Carrie Schmelkin, TMCnet Web Editor


When BMC Software (News - Alert), a leader in businesses service management software and solutions, recognized that it had a host of business challenges it was facing – including the fact that it experiencing VM sprawl from having manage over 13,000 VMware images, suffering from a lack of a big enough backup window for all VM images, and experiencing limited backup or disaster recovery for remote offices – it knew it needed to get a little bit of help.


Its quest led the company to StorSimple, a provider of Enterprise Cloud Storage for Windows and VMware infrastructures. While BMC Software considered options such as purchasing additional SAN storage, storage tiering, or other archiving solutions, each would have required expanding the infrastructure. Conversely, StorSimple’s solution allowed BMC to maintain some on-premise storage while offloading most of its data to the cloud.

According to company officials, the StorSimple appliance determines what data is “hot” and what can be automatically tiered to the cloud in a cost effective method, while freeing up valuable resources within their datacenter. Simultaneously, the cloud storage provider added a backup and disaster recovery strategy that came “baked” into the solution. With StorSimple Cloud Snapshots and Cloud Clones, fast, efficient backups became a viable option for any VM image.

After tapping StorSimple appliances for VMware images, BMC soon discerned that the appliance could be an ideal solution for BMC’s remote sales office as well. With the solution, BMC was able to improve its storage capabilities and reduce restore times. As opposed to a traditional approach of mirroring the existing SAN in one of the sales office locations and building out an additional SAN in another sales office, StorSimple allowed BMC to enjoy primary storage, archive, backup and disaster recovery at a fraction of the cost.

Moreover, by using Cloud Clones, BMC was able to have data available at the DR site in minutes.

“StorSimple gave us the ability to restore data from off-site backups in minutes rather than five days,” Gus Chavira, Enterprise Architect, for BMC, said in a customer case study.

In addition to providing exceedingly quick restoration services, StorSimple also boasts top-notch security, according to company officials. While Chavira expressed concern about security and having data stored on a public cloud, the StorSimple product can encrypt data both in transit and at rest while guaranteeing compression and de-duplication.

In addition, BMC had expected that they would need to make changes in the WAN infrastructure such as firewall rules and policies, but company officials soon discovered that StorSimple supports secure HTTPS connections and provides encryption; therefore, BMC’s data was secured without having to implement any additional network security.

By adopting the cloud storage solutions, BMC has been able to defer or reduced the amount of planned purchases. BMC has realized a five times savings in capital expense over a conventional SAN. Moreover, BMC now has integrated storage – primary, archival, backup, off-site backup to the cloud; simpler remote management and backup; the ability to restore data in minute; and simplified remote management.

“Gus chose StorSimple because of their recognized leadership position in the industry,” StorSimple officials explained in the case study. “When he did his research, everything pointed to StorSimple being the best company and having the most powerful technology behind the product. Gus was very impressed with the product during testing and deployment, noting that it met or exceeded every expectation.”


Carrie Schmelkin is a Web Editor for TMCnet. Previously, she worked as Assistant Editor at the New Canaan Advertiser, a 102-year-old weekly newspaper, covering news and enhancing the publication's social media initiatives. Carrie holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and a bachelor's degree in English from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Rich Steeves







Technology Marketing Corporation

2 Trap Falls Road Suite 106, Shelton, CT 06484 USA
Ph: +1-203-852-6800, 800-243-6002

General comments: [email protected].
Comments about this site: [email protected].

STAY CURRENT YOUR WAY

© 2024 Technology Marketing Corporation. All rights reserved | Privacy Policy