Investing in Future-Proof Storage Solutions

Overview

Challenge

• Replace an obsolete HPE Primera storage system with a more advanced, modern and efficient platform.

Solution

• Capture and compress application data for tier 2 and tier 3 applications.  

Outcome

• An optimized storage environment to efficiently manage the data lifecycle, from development to production.

Challenge

Obsolete Infrastructure Yields Performance Deficit

This large Asian bank, which prefers to remain anonymous for competitive reasons, offers commercial banking and financial services throughout Indonesia, Japan and other parts of Asia, with a focus on the micro business and the SMB sectors, as well as consumer retail banking services.

The bank’s internal IT application team had to replace their HPE Primera midrange storage system, which the vendor no longer supported. In addition to closing out an obsolete support contract, they wanted to upgrade to a storage platform with more advanced technology and exceptional price performance ratio.

“We were looking for an all-flash, block storage environment that would be easy to maintain and monitor,” said the storage and virtualization manager at the bank. “We also wanted the latest NVMe disks to achieve the highest possible performance.”

In particular, the bank needed an elastic storage solution that could meet its rigorous service level agreements for storing and accessing cybersecurity log data. Fundamental requirements included:

• Scalability: To accommodate fluctuating data volumes and future growth.
• Cost-Efficiency: To optimize resource utilization and pay only for what is used.
• Performance: To ensure rapid data access and analysis for timely security insights.
• Security: To protect sensitive data through encryption and access controls.

Solution

Banking on VSP One Block as a Safe Haven for Critical Data

For many years, Hitachi has worked with its partner, Nomina Teknograsi Indodata, to implement Hitachi storage solutions. The initial installation involved VSP E-590 and G-370 systems. Nomina Teknograsi Indodata helped to install and configure the new storage environment in anticipation of steady data growth. 

Based on the success of the E-series and G-series installation, the bank purchased a VSP One Block storage environment to power the bank’s application development and testing infrastructure. The rapid deployment process, completed within one week, facilitated the seamless integration of the new storage environment. The bank likes having a common storage pool with one data protection domain, virtual storage controllers, and a highly scalable block storage infrastructure.

By leveraging the high-performance flash storage resident in this new VSP One platform, the bank can efficiently store and process large datasets, such as its cybersecurity log data, accelerating the development and testing of new applications. Furthermore, by using standard features in Ops Center Protector, the bank can ensure business continuity and minimize downtime in the event of a data loss or security breach. The bank is considering purchasing two additional VSP One units to provide more capacity for their applications.

According to Anthony Mulyadi, Senior Sales Manager at Nomina Teknograsi Indodata, his firm often recommends Hitachi storage because it is fast, scalable, flexible and resilient – without adding complexity. “Our clients want reliable technology, great pre-sales support and great after-sales support to resolve any issues,” he says. “That’s why we partner with Hitachi. They offer advanced technology, great support and assistance with data migration and transformation projects.”

Outcome

A Sound Investment That Delivers Steady Returns

The VSP One platform is  now used as a sandbox environment for application development and user acceptance testing (UAT), such as when building tier 2 and 3 applications for internal use by the bank’s employees. The bank now has plenty of elastic, high-performance capacity for staging new applications prior to production. The new block storage environment will primarily be used by the bank’s application, security, OS and infrastructure teams. 

Their storage and virtualization manager likes Hitachi’s robust compression technology and the ability to easily add extra disks when the bank needs more capacity. A two-rack VSP One Block unit can hold 500TB of data in a small, space efficient form factor. Standard features such as Hitachi Ops Center Protector help guard against data loss via automated data backup, replication  and recovery capabilities. System administrators know they can confidently recover from a data loss or system failure by restoring data to a previous point in time. 

“This is brand new technology,” their storage and virtualization manager says. “My team is very happy with the platform. It is easy to maintain and monitor, and we are quite satisfied with the data compression. Our staff especially likes the Hitachi Op Center administration and Op Center Probe because the GUI is so easy to use.”

Going forward, Nomina Teknograsi Indodata will offer tier 1 and tier 0 after-sales support. If there are any issues, the customer will contact the partner’s support team first. “Hitachi and its partner offer good support,” their storage and virtualization manager concludes. “They are very fast in responding to trouble tickets.”