Intelligent Data Centres Issue 11 | Page 48

END USER INSIGHT THE EXCELERO NVMESH SOFTWARE- DEFINED TECHNOLOGY IS THE ONLY TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION THAT MEETS OUR PERFORMANCE DEMANDS. computing and hosted cloud services. Several years ago, Bezeq migrated from an Oracle Exadata system to a Hitachi UCP with internal Fusion IO and a Hitachi VSP F400 all-flash array connected via Fibre Channel. 48 Issue 11 But recently, the storage solution’s insufficient throughput, slow response times and inability to be expanded led the IT team to seek a revamp. “The Excelero NVMesh software-defined technology is the only technological solution that meets our performance demands and has proven to be an excellent decision,” said Igal Muginstein, Storage and Backup Team Manager at Bezeq. “As a leader in the national communications market, we are on the look-out for promising new technologies. NVMesh is a highly advanced solution and we have quickly seen the tangible benefits of replacing the complicated server with internal SSD and all-flash array with the simplicity and scale of Excelero NVMesh.” The new infrastructure incorporates Excelero NVMesh running on a Fujistu RX4770 server, featuring 96 cores and 1TB memory, and Fujitsu RX2540 storage nodes with 4 TB NVMe drives – totalling 48 TB. The servers are connected with Mellanox 100 Gbps Ethernet switches and NICs. A key benefit of NVMesh was the flexibility to choose the most suitable and cost- effective commodity hardware for Bezeq’s requirements, eliminating vendor lock-in. Early trials showed that in contrast to the maximum 8 Gbps throughput of the Fusion IO devices, the NVMesh environment delivered 16-23 Gbps – well above Bezeq’s requested 15 Gbps throughput. The Excelero storage also reduced run times by an average of 30% compared to the legacy all-flash array environment and, in some workloads, reduced run times by up to 90%. Replacement was simple and while formal metrics weren’t established, Bezeq’s IT team detected reduced CPU demand, helping it squeeze maximum compute power from existing resources. “The winners in the new telecoms landscape will be those forward-thinking organisations that are most effective in www.intelligentdatacentres.com