Orange County Integrated Waste Management Speeds Server Recovery with Compellent
Accurately tracking incoming waste tonnage and providing real-time billing information to waste haulers requires uninterrupted server and storage operations. For Orange County Integrated Waste Management Department (IWMD), operating with 100 percent uptime and recovering faster from unplanned server failures meant recycling its previous SAN.
IWMD manages the solid waste landfill sites for all of Orange County, California - including operations of open landfills, ongoing maintenance of closed landfills and construction of new sites. As a self-sustaining county agency, IWMD is fully funded by scale fees charged to private waste haulers per load, making accurate billing essential. "Waste haulers run their business with the online transaction records we provide, so server uptime is critical," explained Pat Copland, senior technical systems specialist for IWMD.
Unfortunately, previously during server upgrades IWMD wasn't able to provide uninterrupted server access. Twice when a server failed to restart, it was knocked offline for about a day while administrators performed a recovery from the tape backup. On top of the unacceptable server downtime, IWMD's SAN was approaching its storage capacity and would require a full replacement or "forklift upgrade," to support new capabilities like iSCSI server connectivity and future requirements like remote replication.
After evaluating several solutions, IWMD chose Compellent to ensure simplified storage management, rapid data recovery, efficient storage utilization and reduced technology risk.
Compellent Enables Rapid Recovery
Thanks to Compellent's Data Instant Replay software, IWMD has been able to say good bye to unplanned server downtime and hello to rapid recovery. "With the Compellent SAN in place, server recovery no longer has a major impact on our operations - we're back online in less than fifteen minutes," said Pat Copland.
With Storage Center's Data Instant Replay, IWMD can roll back time and recover from potential data hazards in minutes by creating a series of snapshots, called "Replays." Now when a server fails, IWMD can quickly create a new server from the golden boot image, mount the most recent Replay to a new volume and restore full services.
Data Instant Replay automates recovery from data hazards, enabling IWMD's staff to schedule any number of Replays during the day through an Outlook-like interface, and roll back to the last Replay captured before the hazard occurred. With Compellent's space-efficient architecture, IWMD can create and store a high number of Replays without utilizing excess storage capacity or negatively impacting performance. For IWMD, the rapid recovery enabled by Compellent ensures that its customers - area waste haulers - have uninterrupted access to accurate billing data.
For example, within 60 days of installing the Compellent SAN, IWMD experienced server problems during an operating system upgrade. In the past, this would have taken days to recover from by restoring from offsite backup tapes. This time, with Compellent, IWMD was able to use the Replay from 4 a.m. that morning and get the servers running again in less than 15 minutes. Today, using Data Instant Replay, IWMD has reduced its server recovery time from a full day to less than 30 minutes, enabling its IT team to focus on other tasks.
IWMD Avoids Technology Lock-In with Compellent's Technology Independence
Compellent's standards-based hardware architecture allows IWMD to mix and match server interface or drive technologies, designing a system with the speed and bandwidth required. IWMD can choose the right technologies for its IT infrastructure today without unnecessary risk or fear of technology lock-in.
For IWMD, Compellent's simultaneous support for Fibre Channel and iSCSI technologies made the biggest impact.
"With Compellent, we didn't have to take a chance on an only-Fibre Channel or only-iSCSI SAN," said Copland. "We have Fibre Channel server connectivity today and when we want to add iSCSI, or additional software functionality, Compellent is ready."
Waste Not, Want Not - Compellent Ensures Room For Growth
Compellent's unique modular architecture ensures IWMD won't have to recycle its SAN when it needs to add more capacity or functionality. This provides IWMD the freedom to expand the capacity and capabilities of its Compellent SAN on the same platform, without fear of a forklift upgrade. Instead, administrators simply plug in different drive types, sizes and speeds as needed.
In addition, enterprise-level features, like remote replication and automated tiered storage can be easily enabled with a simple software key. According to Copland, this modular growth path was a key purchase decision driver. "Compellent gives us the flexibility to plan for future growth and not just in terms of TBs," said Copland. "We have the freedom to easily add functionality, to expand our SAN as our business needs change without throwing out our current investment."