SoftwareONE Set for Growth in the International Licensing Business with Cisco and NetApp FlexPod

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

IndustrySoftware licensing

The ChallengeGlobal growth of the company as well as a new strategy to improve low performance, and inadequate backup functionalities and integrate remote offices

The SolutionThe FlexPod® data center platform from Cisco and NetApp for a private cloud, combined with georedundant data security and backup as a service in the data centers of green.ch, which use NetApp® solutions

Benefits• FlexPod’s flexibility and

scalability support corporate growth

• Achieved business continuity through redundant data retention

• Simplified integration of remote offices

• Centralized backing up to disk • Improved productivity

through high performance in a distributed corporate structure

• Saved storage space by 55%

Customer ProfileSoftwareONE AG (www.softwareone.com) is a Swiss licensing specialist that supports companies and organizations with complex software requirements in license procurement and software asset management. SoftwareONE is an international large account reseller (LAR) for business application, security, and virtualization products of leading software suppliers and manages more than 2,500 service contracts for its clients. The privately owned company based in Stans has 110 employees in 4 locations in Switzerland (Stans, Wallisellen, Lausanne, and Bern) and a further 900 in the United States, Asia, Latin America, and Europe.

The ChallengeIT infrastructure for a company on a growth trackSoftwareONE is on its way to the top along with the growth of global business in software licensing and contract management. The company is the world’s fastest-growing Microsoft LAR and the largest in Switzerland. This development requires an IT infrastructure that

can easily map growth in data, employees, and processes while offering the highest data security and permanent data access in a globally distributed corporate structure. The last five years SoftwareONE has seen personnel grow by a factor of 14, and the company plans to expand its international presence by more than 20 branches.

Bojan Jancar, head of corporate IT at SoftwareONE, is following a two- stage data-center strategy for satisfy-ing regional and central requirements. The company operates data centers in Wallisellen (Switzerland), Milwau-kee, and Singapore. Core applica-tions, including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), collaboration, and communication, are provided cen-trally from Switzerland.

An effective concept for high availability and business continuity is essential, as is service performance for users’ productivity around the world. Prompted by the licensing specialist’s international growth, the swift and secure integration of globally distributed branches is another key point on its IT agenda.

Success Story

Another NetApp solution delivered by:

The SolutionA single architecture providing broad flexibilityIn cooperation with NetApp partner GlassHouse Technologies and green.ch, a forward-looking IT concept was realized to meet SoftwareONE’s requirements for flexibility and scalability. “All involved specialists at GlassHouse, green.ch, NetApp, and Cisco worked very well together to get the solution ready for production in the shortest time,” says a delighted Jancar.

The core of the concept drawn up by GlassHouse is a FlexPod validated data center reference architecture combined with georedundant security in the green.ch data centers. Cisco® UCS™ blade servers, Cisco network switches, and NetApp unified storage and data management form a unit to create a highly flexible, scalable, and service-oriented IT infrastructure.

Aided by design guides, the FlexPod architecture can be quickly optimized for various business applications based on validated standards and configured for virtual infrastructures and cloud environments. SoftwareONE implemented the design guide for VMware® vSphere®, including VMware vCenter™ and VMware vMotion®. The FlexPod rollout with basic storage training by GlassHouse was completed four months after the first meeting. The globally active provider of IT infra-

structure services and independent consulting services is a long-standing partner of NetApp in Switzerland and other European countries. Together with its clients, GlassHouse defines and implements strategies designed to streamline costs, minimize risks, and improve services.

“We work with an almost completely virtualized environment using VMware and Citrix, and therefore require a service-oriented infrastructure providing high availability and scalability. FlexPod is ideal for this, not least because of the vendors’ joint support concept that gives us additional security,” says Jancar. “The integration of Cisco and NetApp products is truly excellent. The interfaces are predefined, which makes setting parameters far easier.”

SoftwareONE leveraged the FlexPod solution which is based on two NetApp FAS3240 unified storage systems in a switched and stretched MetroCluster™ configuration. Broad protocol support enables consolidation of the Microsoft® databases from the previous SAN, the print and file services, and virtual machines. NetApp MetroCluster software provides a fail-safe environment all the way to business continuity by using synchronous data mirroring and automatic failover. In this way, it also delivers the prerequisites for georedundant security.

Georedundant securityThe concept was realized with the help of green.ch. The company operates four data centers in Switzerland, located a sufficient distance from each other to deliver high availability and delay-free data exchange. The company’s latest site, the greenData center Zurich West, is the only Swiss data center with tier-3 design certification. Workplaces and emergency workplaces complete the offering and allow a comprehensive solution for a customer’s business continuity strategy. SoftwareONE uses green.ch’s housing offer for basic infrastructure services and backup as a service. Green.ch offers this service based on NetApp systems distributed between two sites in Lupfig and Glattbrugg. The MetroCluster software allows a distance of more than 90 miles between two NetApp systems.

The scenario also forms the basis of a multitiered backup scenario. NetApp Snapshot™ technology backs up application data and virtual machines straight to storage for restores at the drop of a hat. NetApp SnapMirror® and NetApp SnapVault® software replicate Snapshot copies on a NetApp system from green.ch. The ICT supplier also uses NetApp storage for its backup services.

„We work with an almost completely virtualized environment using VMware and Citrix, and therefore require a service-oriented infrastructure. FlexPod is ideal for this, not least because of the vendors’ joint support concept that gives us additional security.” Bojan JancarHead of Corporate IT, SoftwareONE

Business BenefitsBusiness continuity and “BYOD” The new service-oriented infra-structure gives SoftwareONE the needed security to operate business-critical applications such as Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft Lync. “ERP and communication are essential to our business. Without access to these applications business would grind to a halt,” Jancar says. “We now have what it takes to provide our services from Switzerland to our IT hubs in Milwaukee and Singapore in an emergency with a minimum of work and with only the briefest of interruptions to business operations.” Even maintenance work on the storage requires zero downtime because the complete service operation, including the virtual machines, can be temporarily migrated to a cluster half.

The high availability achieved with FlexPod also supports SoftwareONE’s client strategy: Remote and home offices are the standard workplace model throughout the company. All employees are equipped with laptops so that they can access the central IT services from wherever they happen to be, whenever they wish. This entails the IT organization’s central group services working with highly standardized patterns for its service offering. The “bring-your-own-device” (BYOD) trend for MacBook Air®, Apple® iPad®, and the like is easy to realize in this way.

As a next step, SoftwareONE will equip its data centers in Milwaukee and Singapore with NetApp systems to integrate data and virtual machines into the central backup concept. This will raise the level of security even higher. It also makes questions of compliance easier to answer. In addition, business continuity is given a new dimension with NetApp technology as backup data can be used to create an operating data environment virtually instantaneously.

Efficiency, flexibility, and scalabilityBojan Jancar points out the outstanding integration with Cisco products and the simple extensibility, for example, when adding a chassis. Another advantage is the bandwidth options provided by the Cisco Nexus® switches. With its support for 20-Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), SoftwareONE can fully exploit the performance offered by green.ch in the data network while running 10GbE within the FlexPod platform.

The flexibility of the FlexPod solution will also pay off for SoftwareONE in coping with growth: As a result, the company requires more personnel and will produce much more data overall. In addition, with the introduction of new applications such as Microsoft SharePoint® 2010 and a business intelligence solution for Microsoft Dynamics, the cost of data management will rise, too. The extent of that will be determined by the storage solution, as Jancar notes: “Since we compared the marginal costs of our previous

HP SAN with the NetApp storage, we know that we operate at lower cost with NetApp.” The efficient storage technologies provided by NetApp help by applying deduplication to around 100 virtual machines, saving SoftwareONE 55% in storage space.

Increased integration with efficiency gain is also certain on the application side, whether it is in storage management using Microsoft and VMware management tools or in backups. SoftwareONE aims to use NetApp SnapManager® software for Exchange, SQL Server®, and Virtual Infrastructure to benefit from automated backup processes.

Performance is a crucial topic in accessing ERP data around the globe. The system is comprehensive, and the million-item mark has long been passed. The new infrastructure has raised performance substantially and has put an end to constant fine-tuning of the database systems. Shorter response times additionally speed up processes in the client business and support productivity. In addition, SoftwareONE can activate in its existing storage NetApp’s state-of-the-art solid-state memory technology. NetApp Flash Cache can then automatically prioritize frequently accessed data to provide accelerated delivery.

Foto: Sauber

VMware vSphere

NetApp SnapMirror and

SyncMirror

Datacenter 1 Datacenter 2

NetApp FAS3240

MetroCluster

Cisco Nexus Switches

Cisco UCS Server

VMware vSphere

Flex

Pod

NetApp FAS3240

MetroCluster

Cisco Nexus Switches

Cisco UCS Server

Flex

Pod

31 miles distance

NetApp SnapVault

Backup as a Service

VMware vMotion

SoftwareONE

Figure 1: Service-oriented IT infrastructure at SoftwareONE with VMware vSphere built on FlexPod, georedundancy and Backup as a Service.

© 2012 NetApp, Inc. All rights reserved. No portions of this document may be reproduced without prior written consent of NetApp, Inc. Specifications are subject to change without notice. NetApp, the NetApp logo, Go further, faster, FlexPod, MetroCluster, SnapDrive, SnapManager, SnapMirror, Snapshot, SnapVault, and SyncMirror are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Cisco and Cisco Nexus are registered trademarks and Cisco UCS is a trademark of Cisco Systems, Inc. VMware, vSphere, and vMotion are registered trademarks and vCenter is a trademark of VMware, Inc. Microsoft, SQL Server, Windows, and SharePoint are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. MacBook Air, Apple, and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. All other brands or products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be treated as such. CSS-6552-0412

www.netapp.com

SOLUTION COMPONENTS

FlexPod ComponentsCisco UCS blade server

Cisco Nexus switches

2 NetApp FAS3240 systems (switched and stretched MetroCluster configuration)

Virtualization ComponentsVMware vCenter

VMware vMotion

VMware vSphere

NetApp SoftwareDeduplication

MetroCluster Software

SnapDrive® for Windows®

SnapManager for Exchange, SQL Server, virtual infrastructure

SnapMirror

Snapshot

SnapVault

SyncMirror®

ProtocolsCIFS, NFS, FC

Third-Party ProductsCitrix XenApp 4.5

Microsoft Dynamics AX and BI for Dynamics

Microsoft Exchange 2010

Microsoft Lync Server

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

Microsoft SQL Server 2008

Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2010

PartnersGlassHouse Technologies AG www.glasshouse.ch

green.ch AG www.green.ch

Private cloud for business growthJancar will leverage automation features available in the FlexPod solution to manage their infrastructure. The Cisco Intelligent Automation for Cloud would be a viable option for provisioning resources through a self-service web portal and service catalog model to create faster IT and business processes.

“Our IT is now able to handle the company’s growth flexibly and efficiently,” says Jancar. “Whether in performance, storage capacity, or functions, it’s now very easy for us to adapt the infrastructure as required. Choosing a FlexPod-based infrastructure is the basis for this.”

„All involved specialists at GlassHouse, green.ch, NetApp, and Cisco worked very well together to get the solution ready for production in the shortest time.»Bojan JancarHead of Corporate IT, SoftwareONE

NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that deliver outstanding cost efficiency and accelerate business breakthroughs. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.

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