Solution Spotlight: Datacenter Infrastructure
Customer: Fortune 500 Pharmaceutical Supply Company
Location: Western Pennsylvania
Highlights
The supply company was looking to refresh its core network equipment — which was nearing end of life — while simultaneously positioning itself for growth. MCPc provided both product procurement and installation services for the upgrade. The new switching architecture offers a highly scalable solution that will continue to take higher bandwidth infrastructure over time, improving the end user’s experience.
Benefits
- Scalable solution better positions the company for growth.
- Higher overall throughput to data center applications, resulting in less lag time when accessing shared servers and faster connections to company systems.
- Increased end-user productivity and better user experience.
- Continued Cisco support.
Business Need
The customer’s core network equipment had reached its useful life expectancy. Over the past 10 years, the supply company had experienced significant growth and needed to engineer a solution that would accommodate its needs for the next 5-7 years. After reviewing several different solutions, the customer chose to go with the higher capacity Nexus switching architecture.
MCPc was the customer’s go-to partner for all networking initiatives — including wireless, server virtualization, IP telephony and licensing — for the past five years. As part of this long-standing relationship, MCPc had been monitoring the customer’s equipment and usage data regularly, and providing quarterly reviews and updates to the customer. As a result, MCPc was able to project when core infrastructure upgrades would be needed in advance, allowing the pharmaceutical company ample time to plan and budget for the refresh.
Solution
When it was time for the upgrades, MCPc met with the customer to discuss its needs and perform a review of current assets, and recommended Cisco’s Nexus 7010 over the current legacy core system. With 10-gigabit capacity, this new datacenter switch could scale with the company and meet future bandwidth infrastructure demands. In addition, it offered a higher overall throughput to the datacenter applications, and advanced options for virtual port channels (VPCs) and virtual data centers (VDCs).
In comparison, the legacy system had a limited roadmap ahead of it, resulting in reduced Cisco support and a lack of advanced features.
MCPc provided both product procurement and installation services for the datacenter upgrade, including project management, staging of equipment, cutover and post-installment support. The total implementation process took two weeks.
During the installation, special consideration was given to the customer’s 24/7 nurses’ helpdesk to prevent downtime. MCPc representatives coordinated with the helpdesk, worked during off-hours and provided a failover alternate solution to ensure the helpdesk was continuously available. This enabled the customer to retain productivity and efficiency, and continue to serve its healthcare network throughout the refresh process.
Results
Compared to the legacy system, Cisco’s Nexus 7010 better positions the company for growth. With its 10-gigabit network, it offers a highly scalable solution that will continue to take higher bandwidth infrastructure over time. As a result, end users will experience less lag time when accessing shared servers, as well as faster connections to company systems overall – even as the company continues to grow.
With the majority of company data saved on a shared server, the upgrades will have a significant impact on end-user productivity. Employees are now able to access the information they need quickly and efficiently, without interruption or slow load times, saving time and creating a better overall user experience.
If you are in need of a datacenter infrastructure upgrade, or an assessment of your current datacenter design, MCPc is available to speak with you about options and help you plan for the future.