Paul Gillin, TechTarget
Patrick Eitenbichler, Hewlett-Packard
Sponsored by

Leslie O’Donnell
Senior Director, Systems Engineering
KinderCare Information Systems

• Technology is Outdated
– HP T500 10 way Database Server
– HP G70 Application Server
– JBOD with Software Mirroring and Striping
• Compressed Maintenance Window
– KinderCare relocated it’s corporate office from
Montgomery, Alabama to Portland, Oregon. Due to the time change, the window during which maintenance could be performed was condensed considerably. KinderCare needed equipment and software that could assist with this change in operation.

– The network was converted from dial-up to continually connected frame relay.
– Intranet e-mail was established for the entire corporation.
• Limited Scalability
– With the addition of frame relay and intranet accessibility, KinderCare needed to effectively accommodate a larger volume of concurrent users.
– All data required 100% back-up on a nightly basis.
– All data required replication for development and testing purposes.

• KinderCare considered using several different vendors to accomplish our goal of a successful and seamless move.
HP was our primary vendor and exhibited the ability to maintain the entire hardware and software solution. This would eliminate the need for multiple vendors and integration problems, and thereby decrease the time spent by KinderCare staff to resolve issues.

– Addition of HP N4000 database server
– Addition of HP K570 application server
– HPUX 10.X and up
– Addition of HP SureStore disk array XP256
• Reduce Maintenance Process
– HP SureStore E business copy XP software
– HP DLT library
• Easily Accommodate Increased User Volume
– Upgrade path to Superdome and XP512 to manage increased number of applications and users.

• Business Copy
– Created reporting database
– Reproduced testing and development system
– Created offline backup system
• XP256
– Eliminated disk bottlenecks
– Gained significant performance improvement
– Reduced complexity of disk management
– Increased flexibility to add capacity

• Data migrations and software upgrade times were significantly diminished.
• KinderCare systems administration department was able to manage 1,200 field locations with a staff of only five personnel.

Storage Innovator Awards
Jim Booth , engagement manager, GiantLoop Networks
John Blackman , systems architect, Wells Fargo
Marc Staimer , president, Dragon Slayer Consulting
Michele Hope , site editor, SearchStorage.com
Mark Schlack , editor in chief, Storage magazine
Paul Gillin , VP, editorial, TechTarget, Inc .

Storage Innovator Awards

Storage Innovator Awards
• Increased Windows NT storage utilization levels from 30 percent to nearly 100 percent
• Move to a SAN eliminated 75 servers; caused a 20 percent reduction in their NT environment
• Accomplished server consolidation/server elimination while data needs were growing
• Used diverse software and storage components creatively to maximize efficiency of their systems
• Exhibited great use of backup/recovery tools and both block- and file-level data transmission over the network

Storage Innovator Awards
“Rohm and Haas clearly demonstrated that IT departments can both maximize existing storage resources AND reduce overall IT costs
–- all while meeting their company’s growing data storage needs. While most companies seem satisfied with maintaining the status quo of their servers, this company actively sought to reduce its volume of servers in use. The company’s move to a SAN proved an integral part of its consolidation efforts.”

Storage Innovator Awards

Storage Innovator Awards
• Fragmented storage, skyrocketing data growth led to decision to implement a SAN
• Storage requirements have grown 90-fold in six years with zero increase in staff
• Saved $120,000/mo. from month one.
• Manage 46TB of data with four p/t administrators
• Zero SAN downtime, much improved visibility into storage fabric
• SAN has enabled large-scale server consolidation

Storage Innovator Awards
“BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee exemplified innovation by completely overhauling its IT architecture over the last several years.
Fundamental to its recent IT initiatives was the installation of a SAN, which permitted huge growth in data volumes with little added cost. The company’s documented cost savings are impressive, as is its potential to handle future growth through expansion of the SAN.”

Storage Innovator Awards

Storage Innovator Awards
• Ran 44 Exchange servers and seven SQL databases, all with locally-attached storage.
• Architectural limitations inhibited storage growth plans.
• Consolidated onto four Exchange servers, single database with SAN underpinning.
• Database administration dramatically reduced, downtime cut, backups trimmed from 32 hours to four.
• $850,000 yearly savings through consolidation; disk savings of $150,000 year one.

Storage Innovator Awards
“Grant Thornton’s story demonstrates the costsaving benefits of consolidation. The company undertook an ambitious project to combine mail and database servers while simultaneously moving to a SAN. Adoption of networked storage enabled many of the infrastructure changes to happen and enabled Grant Thornton to save millions of dollars. The company is well positioned to take advantage of further consolidation benefits.”