- Datacentre Consolidation
- Storage Consolidation
- Backup Centralisation
- Application Consolidation
- Server Virtualisation
- Information Lifecycle Management
- Business Continuity
- Disaster Recovery Optimisation
- Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
- Data Security
- WAN Acceleration & Optimisation
- Automation
- Service Management
- Green Computing
- Cloud Computing
Cost Control
The storage of data can represent up to 40% of your datacentre costs – more than any other infrastructure component. Yet, storage management still remains one of the most inefficient practices in IT, and despite the best efforts of many, too often projects to meet the challenge end in disappointment.
The key is to address the causes, not the symptoms, with an objective approach. This is bread and water for Union. It is where we came from and what we know best. For most of the industry it is a minefield – for us it is second nature.
Growing Problem
The problem started because we were all caught out. We didn’t see it coming, and therefore couldn’t plan for the consequences. Open systems computing exploded and with it data was distributed to the corners of the earth in islands of project and application oriented infrastructure. Before we knew it, IT had relinquished control of the infrastructure assets, process and planning went out of the window, and it wasn’t until the business turned back to IT for an answer that we recognised we had a problem - terabytes of duplicated and unknown data that was growing unabated.
Corporate governance, statutory and regulatory compliance, and of course economic boom and bust then added to the woes, bringing with it an executive focus on data management’s significant corporate risk and cost.
Easy Kills
OK, take a deep breath. First of all it’s important to accept that data grows. It’s the only infrastructure component that does. What’s more, up to 30% of it is probably duplicated and up to 70% has probably not been referenced in the past 6 months. Add to this the probability that you have enough space to accommodate growth, it just happens to be available in the wrong place, and you start to identify easy kills.
Data Classes
Then understand that not all your user’s data needs are the same. There are different performance, availability, growth, and retention requirements throughout your organisation, and therefore don’t assume one class fits all. The very best may satisfy everyone’s needs but if it exceeds most then you’ve wasted money.
Service Alignment
Union will help you identify your data demographics – where it is, how it is growing, how it is used, and what capacity utilisation you experience. Together we will define service classes and align them with business need and appropriate storage classes. Union will produce you a reference architecture augmenting your existing storage assets with new technology that will address all your growth, duplication, retention and utilisation challenges whilst delivering the performance, availability, and compliance services your business users’ demand.
We Do It
Union has all the FC, FCe, SAN, NAS, iSCSI, asynchronous and synchronous replication, snapshot, provisioning, virtualisation, global file system, MAID, RAID, SATA, SAS, and any other storage mumbo jumbo lingo skills you care to mention. This means we can build it and own it – taking the project risk from you to us.
Our technical skills combined with our consultative and objective approach mean that by working with Union you can build a tiered storage infrastructure that drives out cost and risk for good, whilst helping to improve customer satisfaction through service orientation.