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Case Studies | Aeronautics/Defense
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Alcatel Space is a leading global prime contractor for space systems. With expertise in civil and military applications, Alcatel Space develops satellite solutions for telecommunications, navigation, radar and optical observation, meteorology and science. A 100% subsidiary of the Alcatel Group, Alcatel Space today employs over 6,000 personnel. The company has four sites in France and subsidiaries in seven European countries.Alcatel Space The Business Alcatel Space is a leading global prime contractor for space systems. With expertise in civil and military applications, Alcatel Space develops satellite solutions for telecommunications, navigation, radar and optical observation, meteorology and science. A 100% subsidiary of the Alcatel Group, Alcatel Space today employs over 6,000 personnel. The company has four sites in France and subsidiaries in seven European countries. Alcatel Space Toulouse supplies and integrates end-to-end telecommunications systems. The Toulouse location also provides its customers with telecommunications and navigation platforms. The company is active in a variety of sectors, such as the production and integration of systems for payload production, microwave frequency, radar instruments and ground segment products. The Challenge Alcatel Space runs a heterogeneous application server environment comprising Compaq machines running Windows together with various UNIX operating system based servers. These servers are running proprietary applications specifically designed for the specialised requirements of space systems. Alcatel Space in Toulouse recognised that there was a need to perform a complete reappraisal of its storage system and to implement a scaleable, open-ended and independent storage network based on SAN (Storage Area Network) technology. Alcatel was looking for a means of removing dependency on closed and over complex proprietary storage solutions and to implement a centralised storage management that could be used to simplify administration whilst integrating with the existing installed storage base. Centralised SAN-based storage would allow a more flexible approach to allocation of storage to application servers and provide a unified interface for all storage. The Solution Over a period of three years, Alcatel Space Toulouse had assessed five solutions from various vendors, all of which proved to be inappropriate as they were too proprietary. Early in 2001 Alcatel Space was contacted by DataCore Software and introduced to their SANsymphony storage management and virtualisation product. "The final decision was taken in less than a year, our choice being for a solution based on the DataCore product," said Rodolphe Favrel, Information Systems Director, SI/MC Department at Alcatel Space in Toulouse. He summed up as follows: "SANsymphony is more than a technology, it is a complete concept which guarantees openness and independence as regards multi-supplier solutions. It was this openness which really tipped the balance in favour of SANsymphony when compared to the competing solutions." How did you learn about DataCore? We first heard about DataCore following a standard marketing approach from them. During a product presentation, we were attracted to the DataCore concept, in particular its open approach. This was what really made the difference compared to the other solutions that we were assessing. How many different solutions were considered? How long was the selection process? In all we assessed five different solutions based on essentially proprietary architectures. The selection process lasted three years and the final decision was reached in just under a year. Why did you choose a DataCore solution? We felt that the DataCore solution was more in tune with the SAN concept, namely single management of storage volumes combined with independence from storage manufacturers and different operating systems. What is your hardware environment? We use two operating systems: UNIX and Windows. The hardware running UNIX is heterogeneous whereas the hardware running Windows is Compaq. What is your SAN used for? What do you manage? We use the SAN to manage all the data that we need to store. This is essentially data from a number of different programs generated by Alcatel Space specific tools. We have one SAN/FABRIC for backup management using a STORAGETEK automated library and one SAN/FABRIC for storing technical data such as scientific and CAD/CAM information. What volume of data are you managing? What is the current capacity of your installation? At present it is difficult to indicate the data volume managed on all our sites because the majority is dedicated SCSI technology in racks or internal disks. However, today our SAN installation can manage 3 TB of storage with a capacity to evolve rapidly to 11 TB. What do you see as the advantages offered by the SANsymphony solution? Which ones are particularly important to you? The main advantage of SANsymphony lies in its complete independence with regards to the different operating systems and storage systems, thereby allowing freedom from proprietary solutions, which over time, become increasingly difficult to upgrade. We were especially attracted by the ease of use and the allocation of volumes. Can you estimate the savings made with this solution? I would estimate in time the savings to be 30% of the investment.
Copyright © 2002 DataCore Software Corporation. All rights reserved. DataCore, SANsymphony and Powered by DataCore are trademarks of DataCore Software Corporation. Windows and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Click here to download a pdf of this article. |
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