4
Manufacturer to Reduce IT Costs by $2.5 Million with Hybrid Cloud Storage Overview Customer: Textron Customer Website: www.textron.com Customer Size: 32,000 employees Country or Region: United States Industry: Manufacturing—Aerospace and defense Customer Profile Textron is a highly diversified company that makes aircraft, military intelligence products, and industrial and consumer products. The Providence, Rhode Island- based firm employs 32,000 people in 25 countries. Business Situation Textron needed to reduce rising storage costs and ensure that it was getting the best possible value from its storage budget. Solution Textron shifted to hybrid cloud storage using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Azure StorSimple. Benefits Reduce storage costs by US$2.5 million annually Gain storage scalability Improve data availability "We’ve reduced storage costs by 80 percent, or $2.5 million, by moving data into Microsoft Azure using StorSimple, which helped us meet our targeted IT budget reductions.” David Ginn, Director of Architecture, Textron Information Services, Textron In response to increasing storage costs, Textron shifted to Microsoft hybrid cloud storage based on Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Azure StorSimple. By using cloud-based storage, Textron will reduce annual storage costs by US$2.5 million and gain rapid and cost-effective storage scalability. Textron has also gained a cost-effective disaster recovery solution that shortens data access time from 72 hours to minutes.

Textron Case Study - MARQUAM | Microsoft Solution … Case Study.docx · Web viewThe solution was based on Microsoft Azure StorSimple cloud-integrated storage, an on-premises enterprise

  • Upload
    lemien

  • View
    225

  • Download
    1

Embed Size (px)

Citation preview

Manufacturer to Reduce IT Costs by $2.5 Million with Hybrid Cloud Storage

OverviewCustomer: TextronCustomer Website: www.textron.comCustomer Size: 32,000 employeesCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Manufacturing—Aerospace and defense

Customer ProfileTextron is a highly diversified company that makes aircraft, military intelligence products, and industrial and consumer products. The Providence, Rhode Island-based firm employs 32,000 people in 25 countries.

Business SituationTextron needed to reduce rising storage costs and ensure that it was getting the best possible value from its storage budget.

SolutionTextron shifted to hybrid cloud storage using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Azure StorSimple.

Benefits Reduce storage costs by US$2.5 million

annually Gain storage scalability Improve data availability

"We’ve reduced storage costs by 80 percent, or $2.5 million, by moving data into Microsoft Azure using StorSimple, which helped us meet our targeted IT budget reductions.”

David Ginn, Director of Architecture, Textron Information Services, Textron

In response to increasing storage costs, Textron shifted to Microsoft hybrid cloud storage based on Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Azure StorSimple. By using cloud-based storage, Textron will reduce annual storage costs by US$2.5 million and gain rapid and cost-effective storage scalability. Textron has also gained a cost-effective disaster recovery solution that shortens data access time from 72 hours to minutes.

SituationFounded in 1923, Providence, Rhode Island-based Textron is known around the world for its powerful aircraft brands, such as Bell Helicopter and Cessna Aircraft Company. But it also makes golf cars, wire and cable installation systems, turf-care products, automotive parts, and military intelligence products. Textron not only spans multiple industries, but it is also known as a pioneer of the diversified business model. Textron is a US$12.1 billion company with 32,000 employees. Its global network of businesses includes Bell Helicopter, E-Z-GO, Greenlee, Jacobsen, Kautex, Textron Aviation, Textron Financial, and Textron Systems.

Like many companies, Textron is looking for ways to improve services while lowering IT costs. “We had a sizeable IT cost reduction to go after—about 15 percent of our budget—and we knew that storage was a large portion of our midrange costs,” says David Ginn, Director of Architecture, Textron Information Service at Textron. “However, our storage was growing at a rate of more than 30 percent a year. Many Textron companies had experienced data growth because of major projects and organic business expansion.”

Textron Information Services wanted to support the expanding storage needs of the business by ensuring that Textron was getting the best possible value from its storage expenditures and that it was using the most innovative technologies. “We had data that was past its useful life taking up space on all our core storage platforms, and we wanted to move this older data to a cheaper storage solution,” adds Les Rowland, Chief Architect of Architecture, Textron Information Services at Textron. “We wanted to ensure that each type of data was stored as cost-effectively as possible.”

SolutionThe search for a cost-effective storage solution led Textron to cloud-based

options. Because it was an active supplier to the defense industry, Textron could not move to a cloud-only storage strategy because of data security requirements to keep certain data on-premises. However, it could move to a hybrid cloud storage solution.

“Two years ago, we wouldn’t even be having a conversation about cloud data storage because it was deemed too risky for a company in our industry,” Ginn says. “But with all the advances in cloud technology and the many companies making the move to the cloud, we began to seriously look at putting not only data but applications in the cloud.”

Choose FedRAMP-Certified SolutionAfter narrowing its search to Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, Textron selected hybrid cloud storage from Microsoft. The solution was based on Microsoft Azure StorSimple cloud-integrated storage, an on-premises enterprise storage area network (SAN) from Microsoft that interoperates with Microsoft Azure to provide a hybrid cloud storage solution for primary, backup, archive, and disaster recovery. Microsoft Azure is a cloud platform that provides on-demand compute, storage, content delivery, and networking capabilities from Microsoft datacenters.

“We liked the simplicity of StorSimple,” Rowland says. “Amazon’s solution just didn’t have the features and enterprise storage capabilities that StorSimple offered, nor did it have the level of cloud and on-premises integration that Microsoft provided. We didn’t like the idea of piecing together different products.”

Another key factor for Textron was the ability to meet industry regulations. Weeks earlier, in September 2013, Microsoft Azure had become the first public cloud platform to receive a Provisional Authority to Operate from the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board (JAB) for both its

24Er ro r : Re ference source not found

“We had data that was past its useful life taking up space on all our core storage platforms, and we wanted to move this older data to a cheaper storage solution.”

Les Rowland, Chief Architect of Architecture, Textron Information

Services, Textron

infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) is a US government-wide program that provides a standardized approach to security assessment, authorization, and continuous monitoring for cloud products and services. The JAB is the primary governance group of the FedRAMP program, consisting of the chief information officers of the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and the US General Services Administration.

Deploy Hybrid Cloud Storage SolutionTextron purchased four StorSimple units and US$300,000 worth of Microsoft Azure Storage. Microsoft Services Consulting was onsite to help with the first implementation, but Ginn and his team were able to do most of the work unassisted. “It was an incredibly easy process to set up StorSimple, set up our Azure account, configure the storage, and bring it online,” he says.

Textron is using StorSimple and Microsoft Azure as primary storage for all unstructured data. StorSimple employs a three-tiered architecture whereby it puts more frequently used data on high-speed local drives and less frequently used and older data on less expensive cloud storage (Microsoft Azure).

By the end of 2014, Textron will have about 300 terabytes of data in Azure.

BenefitsBy adopting a hybrid cloud storage solution from Microsoft, Textron will be able to reduce storage costs by $2.5 million annually and gain storage scalability. Textron also experiences faster data recovery in the event of a server or datacenter failure.

Reduce Storage Costs by $2.5 Million Annually, Increase ScalabilityBy shifting data storage to StorSimple and Microsoft Azure, Textron was able to easily meet its storage cost reduction goals. “We’ve reduced storage costs by 80 percent, or $2.5 million, by moving data into Microsoft Azure using StorSimple, which helped us meet our targeted IT budget reductions,” Ginn says.

Textron can also scale storage more easily to help IT keep pace with the increasing velocity of the business.

Improve Data AvailabilityIn its previous IT environment, Textron Information Services performed full backups and then replicated data to its disaster recovery location. In a disaster recovery scenario, it could take 48 to 72 hours to bring systems back online. By using multiple StorSimple units in a disaster recovery configuration, access to data is nearly immediate.

“There was no way we could deliver disaster recovery at the size or scale that Microsoft can,” Rowland says. “”We could never manage the capital investment or the processes that Microsoft has in place. We’re happy to let Microsoft innovate and bring new datacenter service offerings to the table so that we can focus on running our business.”

34Er ro r : Re ference source not found

Transform the datacenterThe hybrid cloud from Microsoft transforms the datacenter by extending existing investments in skills and technology with public cloud services and a common set of management tools. With an on-premises infrastructure connected to the Microsoft Azure platform, you can deliver services faster and scale up or down quickly to meet changing needs.

For more information about transforming the datacenter, go to:www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/cloud-os/modern-data-center.aspx

44Er ro r : Re ference source not found

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published October 2014

Software and Services Microsoft Azure− Microsoft Azure Storage

Solutions− Microsoft Azure StorSimple

Services− Microsoft Services Consulting

For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Textron products and services, visit the website at:www.textron.com