Yellow Pages dials up Tegile Systems

US-Yellow operates a database-heavy IT infrastructure with multiple large SQL databases as well as Microsoft Exchange, PostgreSQL, and custom SAP applications. It recently undertook a major IT upgrade, adopting server and desktop virtualization platforms for the first time and making the transition from local server-attached storage to a high-availability Storage Area Network.

Ben Croxton, IT Director at US-Yellow, was well aware of the storage challenges of a virtualized environment, such as the I/O blender effect of server virtualization and the extreme I/O demands of a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure deployment. To mitigate the I/O challenges of a virtualized infrastructure, Croxton sought out a flash-assisted storage solution but was frustrated by what he found.

“I was looking for SAN storage that I felt comfortable using both for production servers and VDI at the same time,” he said. “But after speaking to several larger vendors I realized they either did not have an applicable solution, or their solution was far beyond my price range.”

Croxton narrowed his choice down to commercial SSD-hard disk hybrid arrays from Nimble Storage and Tegile Systems (www.tegile.com). The decision was an easy one, he said, with Tegile offering better hardware, better pricing, more storage capacity (Tegile Zebi arrays boast almost a 4x flash capacity advantage per array compared to Nimble), and an honest, up-front sales process with excellent customer service.

Tegile’s Zebi arrays bring a new approach to high-performance network storage
with an innovative hybrid design that leverages the high performance of SSDs and the low cost-per-terabyte of capacity hard disk drives. The Tegile storage array delivers up to seven times the performance and up to 70% less capacity than legacy arrays. And unlike legacy arrays where any additional storage services require additional license fees, everything needed is built into the Zebi arrays, with a full range of storage services, including backup snapshots, remote replication, inline compression and data deduplication, application optimized templates for fast and easy storage provisioning and one-click deployment of virtual machines and virtual desktops.

For US-Yellow, the virtualization support radically simplified and accelerated the usually complex and time-consuming task of provisioning 7 VMware ESXi physical hosts, about 24 servers and 30 virtual desktops. Not surprisingly, the inline data deduplication functionality that is built into the Zebi array has made a major impact in reducing the storage capacity required for the operating system volumes.

Along with the Zebi hybrid array, US-Yellow installed a complete iSCSI SAN at its Jacksonville headquarters. The Zebi array with 22 TB of raw storage is attached via 4 10 Gigabit Ethernet connections to redundant network switches which then use multiple GigE connections to seven VMware ESXi hosts. US-Yellow also has VDI users running VMware View 5 – adding further stress to the network storage. But Croxton said the Zebi hybrid array has handled the server and desktop virtualization load without a hitch.

Croxton also had praise for the unified storage functionality of the Tegile array. After its initial deployment with block storage in the iSCSI SAN, US-Yellow is planning to install additional Zebi arrays to handle the file storage requirements, replacing disk-based Network Attached Storage arrays it currently uses for backup and disaster recovery.