LeftHand Networks(R), the leading provider of highly available
iSCSI SANs, today announced that Anite, an IT services and system
integration company, has deployed LeftHand Networks´ Virtual SAN
Appliance (VSA) in two of its data centers using a VMware virtual
server environment.
Based in the United Kingdom, Anite is an international software
and solutions company whose primary business is the provision of
industry-specific solutions for wireless telecoms, public sector and
travel markets.
"Historically Anite has had little islands of IT," said Jeremy
Moss, group IT director for Anite. "We run some fairly standard
business applications, including customer support systems."
The organization had too many servers and disparate storage silos.
"With so many servers and storage silos, the data centers were too
complex and inefficient," noted Moss. "We needed to streamline our
operations for both cost and efficiency, and decided to move to VMware
for server virtualization."
With a virtualized environment, the existing silo-type storage
infrastructure was no longer feasible. Anite wanted to implement the
high availability features of VMware Infrastructure 3 that require the
resiliency and data protection that comes with highly available
storage. Server virtualization gave Anite potential server resiliency
advantages but it required storage shared between the servers.
Anite identified LeftHand Networks and its Virtual Storage
Appliance (VSA) for VMware(R) ESX, a full-featured, virtual iSCSI SAN,
as a potential answer. Powered by LeftHand Networks SAN/iQ(R) storage
software, the VSA provides complete SAN management functionality
through the VMware ESX Server. By virtualizing the internal disk
capacity of the VMware ESX host server and clustering the storage
across multiple VMware ESX hosts, LeftHand´s VSA provides data
protection and high availability and eliminates the need for external
shared storage, which is otherwise necessary to implement the advanced
features of VMware Infrastructure.
LeftHand´s VSA includes SAN features such as thin provisioning,
which means that applications don´t require their total storage
capacity installed and allocated up front. An evaluation version of
the VSA can be downloaded from the LeftHand Networks or VMware
web-sites and installed as a virtual machine on VMware ESX Server.
In-flight Testing
Recently Moss test-drove LeftHand´s VSA: "I was on a business trip
to Korea. On the way back I installed two nodes on my laptop. In less
than an hour it was up and running."
While other passengers read magazines and watched movies, Moss
installed and configured a 2-node test SAN on his laptop. It was that
straightforward, and very beneficial. "It was extremely useful to help
me understand what the technical team was so excited about," stated
Moss.
On his return to the United Kingdom, Moss conducted a test phase
comparing LeftHand Networks´ VSA and a Network Appliance product.
LeftHand´s VSA could be integrated into Anite´s Backup Exec regime,
which was a significant advantage. LeftHand Networks quickly became
Anite´s preferred choice as its shared storage solution provider.
Anite has a total of 16 LeftHand Networks storage nodes in eight
paired clusters for resilience, providing 60 terabytes of capacity.
LeftHand Networks storage nodes will be rolled out across additional
Anite sites along with VMware ESX Server clusters over the next few
months.
About LeftHand Networks
LeftHand Networks pioneered IP-based storage area networks (SAN)
in 2001. SANs built using LeftHand´s SAN/iQ(R) software are uniquely
able to distribute and protect data across a cluster of
industry-standard storage servers. The company´s patented architecture
increases data availability, allows users to start small and grow the
SAN seamlessly, and simplifies management. The LeftHand SAN is ideal
for storage and server consolidation, multi-site SANs, and disaster
recovery. LeftHand SANs are available in the U.S., Canada and
throughout Europe. For more information, contact LeftHand at
info@lefthandnetworks.com.
