Sometimes, more means less. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange is expanding its SAN, but reducing its number of suppliers.
The Exchange has decided to upgrade two 64-port Brocade SilkWorm 3850 fabric switches to two 128-port, 4-Gbit/s SilkWorm 48000 directors. The organization is also phasing out its EMC Symmetrix enterprise systems and putting all SAN storage on modular midrange Hitachi Data Systems Thunder arrays.
Both moves make it easier to plug more arrays into the storage network to keep up with data growth, according to director of technical services Rich Ward. We have a single platform connected to the SAN -- one set of tools, one management point, Ward says. I can have a virtual storage pool that consists of lots of arrays. From a management, budgetary, and business perspective, I have a pool of money, I buy storage, manage it, and anybody who needs it gets it.
While there's still a plethora of vendors involved in the exchange's network, Ward's goal is to keep simplifying, reducing the number of vendors and the types of systems hes running in spite of burgeoning growth.
The Exchanges SAN has more than tripled in capacity since 2002, when it held 10 Tbytes. Today, it features 46 Tbytes, distributed across three storage tiers consisting of high-speed Fibre Channel disk arrays, SATA disk arrays, and an ADIC midrange tape library.
