Nimble Storage improves infrastructure for Fruition Partners UK

Founded in 1996, Fruition Partners UK, formerly Partners in IT, are specialists in implementing and supporting IT service management (ITSM) and workflow solutions for private and public sector organisations.

Based in Bracknell, Berkshire, they are a rapidly growing team of over 50 specialists operating throughout the UK and into Europe, supporting clients both on site and remotely.

Technology due a refresh
As a growing organisation working with a number of businesses throughout the UK and Europe, Fruition Partners UK found their data was increasing whilst the costs associated with maintaining their existing SAN infrastructure, including reliability issues and management overheads, were increasing. Fruition’s current environment included three SANs and seven servers. They had recently experienced a total SAN failure following a planned power down. All existing storage infrastructure was 6 years old and out of manufacturer support. There was increasing concern with the existing infrastructure and a growing internal dissatisfaction that led to Andrew Fieldsend of Fruition Partners UK looking for a new solution that would better suit the company’s needs. Andrew said, “The hardware was becoming unreliable, and replacement parts difficult to source, so we needed to replace the SAN infrastructure quickly.”

Decision & Implementation
Andrew began looking at a number of alternatives, including solutions offered by HP, EMC and Dell. Having been previously introduced to Redstor in 2012 who provided Fruition Partners with their offsite data backup solution, Andrew got in touch to see if they would be able to help. He said, “having built a strong working relationship with Redstor after they successfully implemented their data backup service for Fruition, I knew they would be able to help us refresh our storage infrastructure.”

Having only two members of staff on the IT team, Fruition Partners UK needed a solution that would reduce operating costs and time spent managing and monitoring whilst enabling them to reduce their data centre footprint with minimal capital outlay. Redstor suggested Nimble Storage, which utilises an Adaptive Flash platform to consolidate workloads and eliminate storage silos. Nimble Storage would be the ideal solution for Fruition Partners UK to consolidate their infrastructure while providing a platform for future needs.

Fieldsend comments, “Whilst there were cheaper solutions on offer, Redstor understood that a key factor for us was to have a solution that didn’t require too much maintenance and time spent managing spindles. Nimble Storage seemed a perfect fit for our needs as it is simple to manage, low maintenance but also a robust service.”

He adds, “The implementation process was very smooth and the installation was carried out and completed within half a day which was fantastic.”

Benefits
Following the introduction of Nimble Storage and implementation by Redstor, Fruition Partners UK has found the solution to be significantly faster than its previous infrastructure, taking less than half the time to copy data, and with double the read time speeds. Additionally, because the service is automated, Andrew no longer has to spend his time managing and monitoring and has been able to use this time to concentrate on other aspects of the IT department.

Fieldsend comments, “With only two members of staff working across the IT department, it’s crucial we use our time effectively and efficiently. In the past we would often spend a lot of time replacing disks and carrying out general maintenance. Those days are gone and we now spend our time adding better business value rather than maintaining the existing system.”

In addition to saving time managing and monitoring infrastructure, implementing Nimble has significantly reduced Fruition’s data centre footprint to less than a third of it’s previous size. In addition, power usage has been reduced to approximately one quarter of what it was previously, representing a further ongoing saving.

Nimble Support
“Nimble’s user interface is very straightforward and accessible. However, upon initial start up we needed some guidance as to how to navigate the interface and found that Nimble’s support team were very accommodating,” says Fieldsend.

The team spent (number) hours being trained by a member of the Redstor team. “The training was simple, straight forward and easy-to-understand. We implemented the system immediately and have never looked back” says Fieldsend.

Cloud monitoring
Nimble’s Infosight offering allows Fruition Partners UK to ensure their storage infrastructure is in full health. The system identifies problems and possible solutions in real time and ensures any issues are identified and rectified before they occur. This form of cloud monitoring has proved incredibly useful to the company as it has minimised downtime and has proactively alerted them if issues arise.

“There was one particular occasion when Infosight informed us that the system was overheating and, upon investigation, we discovered that the data centre air conditioning had failed.” Fortunately this problem was discovered very early on and we were able to rectify the issue. Had this gone undetected this could have cost a small fortune to identify and fix. The system Redstor installed detected the issue immediately, there was no downtime and the issue was fixed before it became a problem. Many of the cheaper options we looked at wouldn’t have offered this level of detail,” states Fieldsend.