Systems Integrator Wins A $60,000 Storage Project With A Defense Contractor

As pure high-performance storage projects go, this one will make any red-blooded storage VAR's heart pump a little faster. Padova Technologies is the systems integrator in the enviable position of designing and installing a high-performance, high-availability network for a tier-one defense contractor. Padova's customer maintains a modeling and simulation lab for use with many defense-related programs.

Padova has worked with this customer for several years to define and build its network infrastructure. The original implementation used direct-attached server-based storage that was distributed throughout the compute nodes. The distributed storage worked well for early applications, and it was cost-effective. However, the facility continued to grow along with the applications and data sets. As in many cases, the direct-attached storage quickly turned from cost-effective to inadequate in capacity, performance, and management capability. The project requirement was developed as a result of problems encountered when the initial modeling application changed. The customer needed a highly redundant, high-capacity, high-performance network, server, and storage solution.

Partner With Vendors To Provide Tested Storage Solutions
Padova employed basic RAID (redundant array of independent disks) deployment methodology and extensive performance and testing information provided by storage vendor Infortrend to design a new storage solution for the customer. Keith Fischbach, president of Padova, says, "It was our relationship with the customer and Infortrend's sales support, product functionality, and price point that helped us win this project."

Interestingly, Fischbach said the customer noted no objections to Padova's project proposal. "We closely analyzed the customer requirements and proposed the best solution," explains Fischbach. "The competitors proposed their best solution based on their ideas, not based on the customer's requirements."

Padova installed two equally configured Infortrend 4U rack mount A24F-R2224 RAID arrays. These arrays were populated with 24 Seagate 750 GB SATA-II hard disk drives per array. The raw storage capacity was 36 TB; however, Padova configured the array as one large RAID 6 volume with a global spare drive for each array. That left 15.75 TB remaining as usable capacity for each array.

The arrays were then connected to two Supermicro AS1021M-T2 AMD Opteron-based file servers running the Solaris 10 X86 operating system. Each array was configured with redundant Fibre Channel controllers and cross-connected to dual-port Qlogic host bus adapters on the two Supermicro servers. This configuration eliminated any single point of failure.

Provide Dual Redundancy For More Storage Availability
Going one step further, the two arrays were mirrored providing double redundancy for the storage units. The double redundancy of the data was critical because security protocols would not allow remote replication of the data. Several levels of integration were performed on- and off-site by both Padova and the customer, totaling approximately 20 to 30 hours. The customer performed the Solaris operating system integration. The integration, installation, and rollout were performed in less than one week. Padova allotted four hours of on-site instruction to familiarize the customer with the hardware and configurations.

The system has been in place for several months and is meeting all of the requirements of the customer. This installation is a great example of how a systems integrator has developed strong vendor relationships and works with those vendors to provide tested solutions for its customers. Padova already has earned additional business as a result of this installation and stands ready to perform the next series of upgrades for this customer when needed.

www.padovatech.com
www.infortrend.com
www.qlogic.com
www.supermicro.com