Leading Analytical Laboratory chooses an Enterprise SAN Solution from Viglen Storage Group
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About LGC
LGC is Europe's leading independent analytical laboratory, providing chemical, biochemical and forensic analysis. It services a wide range of customers from BSE testing for Defra, through to DNA analysis for numerous police forces.
For an organisation on the leading edge of their profession, IT plays a vital role in ensuring that the work carried out in the laboratories is turned around in the time frame required by the customer.
The business effectively works 24 hours a day, 6 days a week; such hours of operation require a high availability of IT systems and applications.
Drivers for change
As part of an ongoing process to support its high profile contracts with Defra and other government departments, LGC regularly reviewed its disaster recovery situation. In order to upgrade the current provision, it was decided that a secondary computer room would be established 300M from the existing server room and that this would be used to provide a resilient IT environment.
After thorough analysis of current and future requirements, LGC decided that their needs would best be met by the implementation of a SAN solution. A thorough review of the options and evaluation of potential suppliers followed and LGC decided to implement the solution offered by the Viglen Storage Group (VSG) comprising two Hitachi 9570v™ Series Disk Arrays, Syncsort Backup Express and migration of the existing standalone Netware servers into several Netware clusters.
“This was an important project with high visibility within the business. We needed to be sure that the organisation we selected understood this importance and had the necessary expertise to ensure that the implementation went smoothly with minimal impact to the business. In VSG, working closely with Hitachi Data Systems, we were confident that our objectives would be met, and we were not disappointed.”
Kevin Morley
LGC’s Head of IT
Solutions & Benefits
VSG and LGC entered into detailed discussions to design a solution that met LGC’s technical and implementation requirements, while taking into consideration commercial issues.
The core of the solution is two Hitachi Data Systems 9570V™ Series Disk Arrays, one installed in each computer room. The primary array then provides the Netware clusters (with nodes in each computer room) and Windows servers with virtual disk storage. Hitachi TrueCopy™ software then mirrors the volumes to the secondary array.
Data backup in the Netware environment was also an important element in the VSG solution.
Through experience, VSG knew that few of the major backup manufacturers had true support for Netware clusters. Therefore VSG proposed that LGC invest in an enterprise solution from Syncsort. Backup Express is fully Netware 'Yes' certified and provides error-free backup of Netware devices in a cluster environment. It is even able to continue a backup should the clustered service migrate between servers.
This was an important benefit for LGC as it provided extra peace of mind that backups are consistently reliable. Discussing the solution, Martyn Jackson, VSG’s solution architect and project manager said:
“the requirement at LGC to migrate live servers operating 6 x 24 under tight client SLAs provided us with a particular challenge within the project design. By working closely with the LGC IT staff we were able to complete the implementation within the agreed timescales and without undue impact to the user base”.
About Viglen Storage Group
VSG Network Services have been providing network solutions and maintenance support services to organisations throughout the UK for over 20 Years.
VSG is part of the Viglen group of companies providing warranty and maintenance services on behalf of Viglen as well as direct to VSG customers and are an approved supplier of support services to the Higher Education Sector.
For the past 5 years VSG has also focussed on providing enterprise storage solutions. Being manufacturer independent, VSG are able to offer a total storage solution taking best of breed components from a variety of providers including Hitachi Data Systems, Syncsort, McData, Brocade, ADIC and Overland.
VSG will design, install, configure and support all the systems supplied. The technical team and appropriate engineers are fully trained on the solutions prior to installation so that the customer can be assured that the system installed is tried tested, installed and supported by a trained technical team.