Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Case Studies Guelph Hydro modernizes data center with HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged solution

Edit This Case Study Record

	Guelph Hydro modernizes data center with HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged solution Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

Guelph Hydro modernizes data center with HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged solution

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

Technology Category	Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Applicable Industries	Utilities
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
Challenge	Guelph Hydro, a Canadian electric company, was facing challenges with its virtual desktop infrastructure. The IT team was receiving numerous complaints from users about slow system performance and frequent disconnections. Despite making incremental improvements every three to six months, the issues persisted. The company's data center was cluttered due to the use of SANs to run 60-70 VMware hosts on two networks, leading to a 'spaghetti' effect. The company was also keen on reducing its carbon footprint and saving power. The existing SAN took up half to three-quarters of a rack in the space the company had. Despite adding flash processors and hybrid flash arrays, then ESX hosts with NVIDIA cards, the problem remained unsolved. Read More
About Customer	Guelph Hydro is a Canadian electric company that aims to be on the leading edge of technology. The company has a strong commitment to reducing its carbon footprint and saving power. The IT team at Guelph Hydro consists of six members who manage the infrastructure for 80-90 total end users. The company had been using SANs to run 60-70 VMware hosts on two networks, which resulted in a cluttered data center. The company's IT team was keen on making the company's data center footprint smaller and improving performance as they also started pushing VDI out to their AutoCAD users. Read More
Solution	Guelph Hydro decided to implement the HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged solution in the summer of 2015. The solution was chosen for its ease of integration, support for NVIDIA Grid cards, and competitive cost. The implementation of HPE SimpliVity led to a significant reduction in the company's data center footprint and power costs. The solution eliminated the need for two switches and the SAN, thereby reducing space, power, and cooling requirements. The IT team was able to save huge amounts of time, as tasks such as creating new data stores became dramatically faster. The company was also able to eliminate the need for their current backup tool, further reducing costs. The IT team has saved 49TB worth of storage on backups alone, and they are now backing up virtual desktops, which they did not have the storage to do previously. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing

Applicable Industries

Utilities

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Challenge

Guelph Hydro, a Canadian electric company, was facing challenges with its virtual desktop infrastructure. The IT team was receiving numerous complaints from users about slow system performance and frequent disconnections. Despite making incremental improvements every three to six months, the issues persisted. The company's data center was cluttered due to the use of SANs to run 60-70 VMware hosts on two networks, leading to a 'spaghetti' effect. The company was also keen on reducing its carbon footprint and saving power. The existing SAN took up half to three-quarters of a rack in the space the company had. Despite adding flash processors and hybrid flash arrays, then ESX hosts with NVIDIA cards, the problem remained unsolved.

About Customer

Guelph Hydro is a Canadian electric company that aims to be on the leading edge of technology. The company has a strong commitment to reducing its carbon footprint and saving power. The IT team at Guelph Hydro consists of six members who manage the infrastructure for 80-90 total end users. The company had been using SANs to run 60-70 VMware hosts on two networks, which resulted in a cluttered data center. The company's IT team was keen on making the company's data center footprint smaller and improving performance as they also started pushing VDI out to their AutoCAD users.

Solution

Guelph Hydro decided to implement the HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged solution in the summer of 2015. The solution was chosen for its ease of integration, support for NVIDIA Grid cards, and competitive cost. The implementation of HPE SimpliVity led to a significant reduction in the company's data center footprint and power costs. The solution eliminated the need for two switches and the SAN, thereby reducing space, power, and cooling requirements. The IT team was able to save huge amounts of time, as tasks such as creating new data stores became dramatically faster. The company was also able to eliminate the need for their current backup tool, further reducing costs. The IT team has saved 49TB worth of storage on backups alone, and they are now backing up virtual desktops, which they did not have the storage to do previously.

Impact #1	Improved virtual desktop performance and user experience
Impact #2	Reduced help desk calls
Impact #3	Reduced time spent resizing storage

Impact #1

Improved virtual desktop performance and user experience

Impact #2

Reduced help desk calls

Impact #3

Reduced time spent resizing storage

Benefit #1	Saved 49TB worth of storage on backups alone
Benefit #2	Efficiency rates of 39:1 achieved
Benefit #3	Reduced data center footprint and power costs

Benefit #1

Saved 49TB worth of storage on backups alone

Benefit #2

Efficiency rates of 39:1 achieved

Benefit #3

Reduced data center footprint and power costs

Download PDF Version

Overview

Guelph Hydro modernizes data center with HPE SimpliVity hyperconverged solution

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit