Felix Schoeller Group Implements High-Performance Storage for VMware Using DataCore SAN Software
With six locations in Germany and Canada, Felix Schoeller Group is one of the largest manufacturers of specialty papers worldwide.
According to a release, Schoeller selected DataCore virtual storage area network (SAN) technology to complement its VMware ESX Server systems. SANmelody was initially deployed since it increased SAN performance compared to the previous hardware solution. The system also provided high availability protection and then was subsequently further enhanced by way of upgrading to DataCore’s SANsymphony, which provides the company with the unlimited storage capacity that it requires.
“To migrate the consolidated VMware server workloads into the production environment, we needed a high-performance, failsafe SAN,” explained Michael Mohlmann, IT department director, Felix Schoeller Group. “We searched for a technically mature and affordable solution, which we found in DataCore. The DataCore solution fulfills our requirements in terms of performance and high availability - and, in addition, we have a very flexible and reliable SAN platform that gives us hardware independence and long-term costs savings.”
The groups said the VMware and DataCore combination already has been proven to failover properly in a real life emergency case when a power loss paralyzed three ESX servers and the disk systems. Automatic failover of both systems functioned as they should in test scenarios and shifted the virtual machines, including the corresponding virtual drives, without any interruption of business. After restarting the system, SANmelody’s auto failback reassigned the drives to the corresponding virtual machines.
“In our old architecture we might have had a loss of several hours. The high availability functions of VMware and DataCore hand in hand saved us time and costs,” noted Mohlmann.
Schoeller is evaluating DataCore’s Traveller CDP for continuous data protection, which will be integrated into its SANsymphony environment. After the successful completion of this phase of the project at the Group’s headquarters in Osnabruck, Germany, Schoeller plans additional SANmelody rollouts in its subsidiaries. With that in place, Schoeller will be able to realize a disaster recovery solution for its remote locations.