NORTHSTAR Trade Finance Takes “No Compromise” Approach with EMC
VNXe Unified Storage
VNXe Deployed in Just 30 Minutes; Customer “Blown Away” by 4X
Performance Boost of Virtualized Applications; Daily Storage Management
Dramatically Simplified
HOPKINTON, Mass. – November 16, 2011 – EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC)
today announced that NORTHSTAR Trade Finance, Inc., a leading provider
of financing to small and mid-size Canadian exporters, selected EMC®
VNXe™ unified storage (
http://www.emc.com/storage/vnx/vnxe-series.htm)
over Dell, HP and IBM to run its 90 per cent virtualized server
infrastructure running on VMware virtualization and cloud infrastructure
technologies. The VNXe has boosted both performance and availability for
the company’s critical transactional, financial and customer-facing
applications including SQL, while greatly simplifying IT administration
– with no compromise.
Customer Benefits:
* Increased Performance – EMC VNXe performs 4X faster than
NORTHSTAR’s previous HP storage solution, enabling more responsive
service to customers
* Improved Efficiency – Thin provisioning helps NORTHSTAR optimize
storage utilization without compromising performance or capacity;
Integration with VMware virtualization and cloud infrastructure
technologies enables NORTHSTAR to create virtual machines in minutes
versus hours to smoothly support growing business needs
* Simplified Management – Built-in wizards on the VNXe shave hours
off of daily system management, improving IT productivity and freeing
time for more strategic projects
Customer Challenges and Solution:
NORTHSTAR was moving along with an aggressive plan to virtualize its
core business applications. Its existing storage system struggled to
perform within the virtualized environment and could not keep pace with
ever-growing data requirements. NORTHSTAR’s IT infrastructure had also
run out of storage capacity and could no longer support the addition of
the lightest weight applications. As a result, NORTHSTAR’s sole IT
administrator faced a time-consuming and complex process to provision
applications and manage the virtual environment.
After closely evaluating other vendors, NORTHSTAR selected EMC VNXe
unified storage for its efficiency, simplicity and affordability to
support its critical business applications, including Microsoft Exchange
email, Microsoft SQL Server databases and Sage ERP Accpac business
management. NORTHSTAR also utilizes EMC Unisphere (
http://www.emc.com/products/detail/software/unisphere.htm )™ for
integrated management of both storage assets and the VMware virtual
environment.
Customer Quotes:
Pardave Lehry, Technical Analyst, NORTHSTAR Trade Finance Inc.
“We looked at Dell, HP, IBM and EMC. The VNXe was clearly the best
choice for our needs. It met our requirements for top simplicity and
efficiency. We also liked that the VNXe was affordable, more innovative
and offered a simpler management interface than the other solutions.”
“The VNXe was remarkably simple to set up. The wizards take all the
guesswork out of configuring the system. I just plugged in the VNXe,
hooked up a laptop and had it running in 30 minutes. It was that
simple.”
“The integration between VNXe and VMware technologies really
simplified creating and managing virtual machines. With HP or Dell,
creating a new virtual machine was confusing and would have taken four
hours of working with different tools to provision the storage. With EMC
Unisphere and VMware vCenter™ Server, I can create a new virtual machine
in less than 20 minutes.”
“I am blown away by how fast VNXe moves data. I had provisioned an
80-gigabyte virtual machine for a SQL Server application and expected
the data migration to take a few hours. But it was done in three
minutes. It was amazing. Generally, I’m seeing performance on the VNXe
that’s 4X faster than our old HP syste
m. With gains like these,
we’re able to execute transactions more quickly and deliver more
responsive service to our customers.”
“Our customer and financial data is critical to our operations. VNXe
makes my job easier because I don’t have to worry about downtime or
other disruptions to the business. The built-in redundancy and high
availability features eliminate single points of failure. And with thin
provisioning on the VNXe, I can maximize storage utilization and
performance without my prior concerns about running out of storage.”
“EMC’s VNXe is optimized for VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure).
As our business continues to expand, we plan to move additional VDI
applications into our smaller offices and they will all be supported by
VNXe.”
“I definitely recommend EMC and EMC VNXe to others. It’s simple,
efficient and affordable. The level of customer service I’ve received
from EMC has been phenomenal. The entire sales process was the smoothest
I’ve experienced. It’s true that people make the organization and my
account team is the prime reason why I will continue to recommend EMC
products in the future.”
About VNX
The award-winning VNX Family offers customers simple, efficient,
affordable and powerful unified storage optimized for virtualized
application environments. With the EMC FAST Suite, VNX customers can
cost-effectively leverage the benefits of Flash performance — with "no
compromise". VNXe offers an affordable unified storage platform for
smaller businesses with solution-focused software that’s easy to
manage, provision, and protect. The Family dramatically simplifies the
deployment and management of virtualized applications, including those
from Microsoft, Oracle, and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)
solutions from VMware and Citrix.
Additional Resources:
* Learn more about EMC VNXe
(
http://www.emc.com/storage/vnx/vnxe-series.htm)
* Learn more about EMC Unisphere
(
http://www.emc.com/products/detail/software/unisphere.htm)
* Read the customer profile: NORTHSTAR
(
http://www.emc.com/collateral/customer-profiles/h8952-northstar-trade-fin-cp.pdf)
* Connect with EMC via Twitter (
http://emc.im/pv0ODN), Facebook
(
http://emc.im/oV8wDa), YouTube (
http://emc.im/njvQnq), LinkedIn
(
http://emc.im/p7PAo4) and ECN (
http://emc.im/bd2nk1)
About EMC
EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service
providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service.
Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through
innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud
computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze
their most valuable asset – information – in a more agile, trusted
and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at
www.EMC.com.
EMC Canada (
www.EMC2.ca), headquartered in Toronto with nine offices
from coast to coast, is a wholly owned subsidiary of EMC Corporation.
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For more information contact:
Mike Martin/Michelle Chang
StrategicAmpersand
416-961-5595 mike@stratamp.com michelle@stratamp.com EMC and VNXe are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation
in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. VMware and VMware
vCenter are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in
the United States and/or other jurisdictions. The use of the word
“partner” or “partnership” does not imply a legal partnership
relationship between VMware and any other company. Other trademarks are
the property of their respective owners. (
http://emc.im/oV8wDa )