Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Case Studies UK Firm Modernizes IT Infrastructure and Improves Data Protection with SimpliVity

Edit This Case Study Record

	UK Firm Modernizes IT Infrastructure and Improves Data Protection with SimpliVity Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

UK Firm Modernizes IT Infrastructure and Improves Data Protection with SimpliVity

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

Technology Category	Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Storage Services
Applicable Industries	Professional Service
Applicable Functions	Business Operation
Use Cases	Infrastructure Inspection Remote Asset Management
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services System Integration
Challenge	Lawlords, a UK-based full-service firm of costs lawyers, law costs draftsmen and costs consultants, was facing challenges with its aging IT infrastructure. The firm relied on a mix of non-redundant legacy HP and Dell servers with internal storage. This outdated infrastructure was becoming increasingly risky and costly to maintain. Equipment failures or catastrophes had the potential to impair critical IT services and disrupt business. Furthermore, Lawlords was constrained by inefficient tape-based backup procedures. Applications and data were backed up daily, after business hours. Manual restorations from tape took hours, and any changes that occurred since the last nightly backup were simply lost. Stuart Taylor, IT Manager for Lawlords, initiated a data center modernization program to improve the reliability and agility of the firm’s IT infrastructure. Read More
About Customer	Lawlords is a leading full-service firm of costs lawyers, law costs draftsmen and costs consultants based in the United Kingdom. The firm has offices in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Carlisle. Lawlords provides a range of services to its clients, including cost budgeting, cost management, cost negotiation, and more. The firm prides itself on its commitment to delivering high-quality services and achieving the best possible outcomes for its clients. However, Lawlords was facing challenges with its aging IT infrastructure. The firm relied on a mix of non-redundant legacy HP and Dell servers with internal storage. This outdated infrastructure was becoming increasingly risky and costly to maintain. Equipment failures or catastrophes had the potential to impair critical IT services and disrupt business. Furthermore, Lawlords was constrained by inefficient tape-based backup procedures. Applications and data were backed up daily, after business hours. Manual restorations from tape took hours, and any changes that occurred since the last nightly backup were simply lost. Read More
Solution	After evaluating a number of potential options including solutions from HP, NetApp and EMC, Taylor selected SimpliVity OmniCube hyperconverged infrastructure as the foundation for the company’s next-generation data center. SimpliVity OmniCube provides a scalable, modular, 2U building block of x86 resources that offers all the functionality of traditional IT infrastructure—in one device, with a unified administrative interface. The solution eliminates cost and complexity by assimilating a variety of IT functions including the hypervisor, compute, storage, network switching, replication, backup, WAN optimization and real-time data deduplication. The solution delivers the best of both worlds: x86 cloud economics and enterprise capabilities including data efficiency, performance, data protection and global unified management. Lawlords implemented a geographically distributed OmniCube configuration for ultimate data protection and resiliency. The firm replaced four HP tower servers with two 2U SimpliVity OmniCube CN-2200 nodes in its primary data center in Manchester. The redundant configuration ensures continuous availability in the event of hardware failures. The firm also deployed an OmniCube CN-2200 in their Carlisle office for disaster recovery. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Storage Services

Applicable Industries

Professional Service

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Use Cases

Infrastructure Inspection

Remote Asset Management

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

System Integration

Challenge

Lawlords, a UK-based full-service firm of costs lawyers, law costs draftsmen and costs consultants, was facing challenges with its aging IT infrastructure. The firm relied on a mix of non-redundant legacy HP and Dell servers with internal storage. This outdated infrastructure was becoming increasingly risky and costly to maintain. Equipment failures or catastrophes had the potential to impair critical IT services and disrupt business. Furthermore, Lawlords was constrained by inefficient tape-based backup procedures. Applications and data were backed up daily, after business hours. Manual restorations from tape took hours, and any changes that occurred since the last nightly backup were simply lost. Stuart Taylor, IT Manager for Lawlords, initiated a data center modernization program to improve the reliability and agility of the firm’s IT infrastructure.

About Customer

Lawlords is a leading full-service firm of costs lawyers, law costs draftsmen and costs consultants based in the United Kingdom. The firm has offices in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Carlisle. Lawlords provides a range of services to its clients, including cost budgeting, cost management, cost negotiation, and more. The firm prides itself on its commitment to delivering high-quality services and achieving the best possible outcomes for its clients. However, Lawlords was facing challenges with its aging IT infrastructure. The firm relied on a mix of non-redundant legacy HP and Dell servers with internal storage. This outdated infrastructure was becoming increasingly risky and costly to maintain. Equipment failures or catastrophes had the potential to impair critical IT services and disrupt business. Furthermore, Lawlords was constrained by inefficient tape-based backup procedures. Applications and data were backed up daily, after business hours. Manual restorations from tape took hours, and any changes that occurred since the last nightly backup were simply lost.

Solution

After evaluating a number of potential options including solutions from HP, NetApp and EMC, Taylor selected SimpliVity OmniCube hyperconverged infrastructure as the foundation for the company’s next-generation data center. SimpliVity OmniCube provides a scalable, modular, 2U building block of x86 resources that offers all the functionality of traditional IT infrastructure—in one device, with a unified administrative interface. The solution eliminates cost and complexity by assimilating a variety of IT functions including the hypervisor, compute, storage, network switching, replication, backup, WAN optimization and real-time data deduplication. The solution delivers the best of both worlds: x86 cloud economics and enterprise capabilities including data efficiency, performance, data protection and global unified management. Lawlords implemented a geographically distributed OmniCube configuration for ultimate data protection and resiliency. The firm replaced four HP tower servers with two 2U SimpliVity OmniCube CN-2200 nodes in its primary data center in Manchester. The redundant configuration ensures continuous availability in the event of hardware failures. The firm also deployed an OmniCube CN-2200 in their Carlisle office for disaster recovery.

Impact #1	Efficient disaster recovery and business continuity for 65 end-users across four sites
Impact #2	Streamlined administration; single IT manager oversees entire operation
Impact #3	Improved performance and reliability for business-critical applications

Impact #1

Efficient disaster recovery and business continuity for 65 end-users across four sites

Impact #2

Streamlined administration; single IT manager oversees entire operation

Impact #3

Improved performance and reliability for business-critical applications

Benefit #1	Backups and restores completed in seconds compared to hours
Benefit #2	Reduced storage costs; 63:1 data efficiency
Benefit #3	Reduced TCO; four tower servers consolidated into two 2U units

Benefit #1

Backups and restores completed in seconds compared to hours

Benefit #2

Reduced storage costs; 63:1 data efficiency

Benefit #3

Reduced TCO; four tower servers consolidated into two 2U units

Download PDF Version

Overview

UK Firm Modernizes IT Infrastructure and Improves Data Protection with SimpliVity

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit