Swiss IT company optimises services with McDATA-based SAN

T-Systems Switzerland, a Swiss ICT services company with more than 1,000 employees, has implemented a McDATA-based storage network solution to sustain the significant annual data growth rates, and to meet stringent connectivity and disaster recovery requirements. McDATA's OEM partner EMC was also cited for the win.

The new SAN grants T-Systems access to a highly scalable, flexible infrastructure with customized storage capacities and is spread over four fabrics. The redundant, failure-proof design has McDATA Intrepid Directors at the core switching data traffic between a heterogeneous mix of more than 100 servers and disk subsystems. Sphereon 4500 Fabric Switches were also installed to support disaster recovery and business continuity applications.

"We can now guarantee our customers disaster recovery re-start times of less than one hour and the complete recovery of their data," said Donat Kaeser, head of storage management at T-Systems Switzerland in Bern-Zollikofen. "For storage, the decision to use McDATA Intrepid Directors resulted from our selection of storage subsystems; we think they (McDATA Directors) offer the best functionality within the EMC storage environment. The scalable McDATA Directors not only provide the connectivity we require, but also a stable operational platform that is highly available."

The installation of the McDATA SAN solution helped T-Systems realize the benefits of highly scalable connectivity, reduced network administration and upgraded DR/BC capabilities. Also cited as a benefit was McDATA's compatibility and interoperability capabilities of a heterogeneous storage environment. Now, the company's more reliable SAN architecture provides T-Systems' customers with better availability and high storage capacities.

"With the decision for the new SAN, T-Systems was able to meet every requirement they looked for; from increased storage capacity and connectivity, to data protection and interoperability," said Georg Bartz, vice president EMEA sales and services for McDATA. "McDATA looks forward to working with all of its partners to provide customers with core-to-edge solutions that are reliable, flexible and will give them one less thing to worry about."