KnowledgeBase Marketing
Sun Storage Consolidation and Virtualization Solution Boosts Performance, Lowers TCOKnowledgeBase Marketing provides information and database marketing solutions that enable companies to acquire and manage profitable customer relationships across traditional and Web-based contact points. KnowledgeBase Marketing is part of the WPP Group, one of the world’s most comprehensive communication services organizations with 2,000 offices in 106 countries. Customer Challenges
SolutionFollowing a storage assessment performed by Sun Advantage Partner Lumenate, KnowledgeBase Marketing consolidated multiple storage platforms and implemented an information lifecycle management (ILM)/storage virtualization strategy to improve its storage utilization and reduce TCO. As a follow-on project, Sun helped the customer move its data center from Houston to Dallas, Texas, and refresh its mainframe environment. Business Results
Story DetailsKnowledgeBase Marketing (KnowledgeBase) processes more than 60 billion transactions per year and stores more than 170 terabytes of data. With data volumes growing at 35 percent annually, KnowledgeBase recognized the need for a more cost-effective and scalable storage solution. The existing tiered solution relied on expensive enterprise-class storage and lacked flexibility to accommodate changing customer requirements. The old system also extended across multiple platforms that were costly to administer and maintain. Over the years, Sun had successfully delivered solutions that scale and evolve to keep pace with business growth. KnowledgeBase deployed a grid architecture using Sun Fire V240, T2000 and V490 servers running the Solaris 9 and 10 operating systems. This high-performance, reliable open systems environment made it possible for the customer to migrate batch processing off its mainframe system, reducing overall transaction costs by 86 percent. The newest additions to the grid, Sun Fire T2000 servers running Solaris 10, meet the demands of multithreaded I/O-intensive applications such as a National Change of Address (NCOALinkTM) processing system that handles 40 million transactions per hour.
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Sun does a great job of staying focused on solutions and incorporates new storage technologies such as storage virtualization to meet changing market requirements. We rely on Sun to keep pushing the envelope, which helps us stay ahead of the competition with faster, more reliable and more comprehensive services.
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— Brian Camp, Senior Vice President, Infrastructure, KnowledgeBase Marketing
Based on these successes, KnowledgeBase next looked to upgrade its systems and processes to support an Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy. Goals included improved scalability, I/O throughput and storage virtualization. Sun Advantage Partner Lumenate was engaged to perform a storage assessment. The assessment included interviews with the KnowledgeBase technical staff and application owners, a physical discovery of all storage resources and a host-based, file-level discovery to determine how efficiently the data storage was being utilized. As a result of the assessment, KnowledgeBase, Sun and Lumenate worked together to implement a “blended” storage model that consolidates storage for its open-systems platforms across two tiers. The first tier consists of a 40 terabyte Sun StorageTek 9990 system dedicated to critical database applications for enterprise customers. The second tier uses a modular 35 terabyte Sun StorageTek FlexLine FLX380 storage system as well as enterprise and modular storage arrays to provide a virtualized storage repository. Numerous management features in the Sun StorageTek 9900 software help KnowledgeBase manage its virtualized storage from a single console. Universal Volume Manager enables both internal and external storage to be aggregated into a common pool and managed with a single set of tools. Tiered Storage Manager transparently migrates data between storage tiers and Device Manager provides the device interface for the other software, allowing management of storage on disparate platforms. ShadowImage provides high-speed, in-system data replication, enabling immediate use of data for decision support, development and testing. TrueCopy Replication duplicates data for business continuity and disaster recovery. The solution is fully supported by a SunSpectrum agreement. KnowledgeBase estimates that this virtualized storage model has reduced its total cost of ownership by 40 percent. The solution has streamlined storage management and reduced administration time by about 50 percent. Throughput improvements of 50 percent have boosted customer response times for an added competitive edge. Recently, Sun helped KnowledgeBase move its Houston-based data center to a new facility in Dallas. As part of this move, KnowledgeBase upgraded its IBM z/OS mainframe environment including a refresh of its Sun storage hardware. They continue to use a 20 terabyte Sun StorageTek 9985 storage system and chose the Sun StorageTek SL8500 Modular Library System—which is partitioned to support both the mainframe and open systems backup environments—and Sun StorageTek T9840B and C tape drives. Now KnowledgeBase can store twice as much data per tape cartridge, and the company expects to reduce its annual tape expense by 25 percent. The customer also upgraded from Sun StorageTek Virtual Storage Manager (VSM) System 3 to System 4. Users noticed an immediate boost in performance when channel utilization dropped from 80 or 90 percent to about 5 or 10 percent. Sun’s innovations in extreme scalability and storage technology allow KnowledgeBase to add infrastructure in cost-effective increments to adapt to customers' changing needs and keep its data center on the cutting edge. |
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