EasySpeedy

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Business models may change, but IT challenges often remain the same. EasySpeedy, based in Denmark, discovered this with the success of its unmanaged hosting services solution. The service is an adaptation of the traditional managed services model, whereby instead of EasySpeedy personnel supporting customers’ servers, clients do it themselves via a Web browser and EasySpeedy’s Remote Control Center software.

The idea was a success among the business community; the company attracted customers worldwide. However, along with this achievement came the familiar challenge of building for the future and delivering successful new revenue streams. Priority number one was finding a viable data storage solution for customers that was easy to scale and simple to manage.

Because the principle of non-proprietary systems was deeply rooted in the company’s philosophy, EasySpeedy wanted the storage platform to be open. The company had already become successful through an open server platform. Its datacenter consists of 1,200 physical servers in a mixed environment of rack-optimized Sun Fire and white box servers, running 28 operating systems. The Remote Control Center is supported by Sun SPARC Enterprise servers. Peter Lerche, chief executive officer at EasySpeedy, says, "Sun Open Storage was a perfect fit for our open concept at the heart of EasySpeedy, where the customer has the power. With Open Storage, we are not locked into one product line and proprietary protocols. Sun gives us the ability to build the architecture that suits our needs. With Open Storage we have freedom, rather than being bound hand and foot."

The fact that Sun Open Storage supports many different protocols ensures that it delivers EasySpeedy’s concept that clients should have the freedom to use the operating system they prefer. "Our aim is to best serve our customers. That means, simply, that we must be able to provide access to storage from a variety of operating systems including Linux, Windows, Solaris, UNIX, and Apple," says Lerche.

EasySpeedy's Open Storage solution is based on Sun Storage 7410 Unified Storage System technology. The clustered solution comprises two front-end computers acting as controller heads connected to 24-TB Sun J4400 array with the Solaris 10 Operating System. Unlike many storage solutions, the software for mirroring and snapshots is built in, thereby reducing costs. In addition, Solaris ZFS technology allocates data to the most efficient media automatically, helping reduce energy consumption.

Comments Lerche, "We are free to expand the number of controllers and to add more disks. This gives our customers the security of a razor-sharp service and, when Sun's pricing in volume is considered, excellent value. We can offer 100 GB of incremental storage on demand for €50 per month. Customers can continue increasing or decreasing storage through our Remote Control Center.”

The company also chose Sun Open Storage because of the management software that comes as part of the package. This software gives personnel a full view of how each server performs: how quickly and accurately data is written to the disks and whether there is enough capacity. "The management software is important because it enables us to identify potential problems and to solve them. And it is completely automatic. We just follow what is on the screen," says Lerche.

EasySpeedy expects its relationship with Sun to continue. "We've had a very good relationship with Sun for several years now, and we can trust that their technology works. This applies not just to the Open Storage products; the storage and backup must also serve our virtual server concept. So yes, we are happy customers," concludes Lerche.