END USER INSIGHT
DWDM links . To make service migration seamless , a pair of Dell-Pluribus switches interface with the existing Cisco Nexus 5500 switch . The Pluribus Adaptive Cloud Fabric ( ACF ) was able to extend the fabric from the new data centre to the old one and seamlessly connect to migrate services .
The workload migration was completed smoothly within the allocated time and after extensive testing . This solution was certified from a bank regulation compliance at the end of 2020 .
to a single data centre independently managed from the other one .
• Legacy systems : All networking switches , majority of the storage systems and firewalls were old and required modernisation to meet emerging requirements of the business .
Based on the network challenges , the Creval IT team came up with the following objectives for the network redesign :
1 . Streamline Disaster Recovery procedures : The key requirement for the network redesign was the need for a deterministic and streamlined Disaster Recovery strategy .
2 . Evolve to a scalable and flexible data centre architecture : Build two new data centres with an option to expand to a third or even more sites without having to re-architect the network .
3 . Operational agility : Have a unified overlay network fabric across the geographically separated data centres to enable simplified operations and workload mobility .
4 . Business Continuity : Continuity of business operations during the entire network redesign and migration process was a very important consideration for the team .
5 . Migration : Seamless migration of services from the old data centres to the new data centres was a key requirement of this project .
Dell-Pluribus solution
The Creval team undertook a detailed analysis of the solutions and technologies available in the market that could meet its requirements . After an extensive evaluation process , the team selected Pluribus Netvisor ONE , running on highperformance open networking Dell 5200 series switches .
The key to choosing Pluribus was based on its ability to meet all of the programme objectives and selection criteria , which included the ability to unify the data centres into a seamless multi-site fabric for operational simplicity , agility , ease of service migration , integrated analytics for visibility and the ability of the solution to scale .
Creval built two new modern data centres within a 50 km distance of each other . The two new data centres are interconnected with two 10G low-latency
“ The key benefit of this network refresh with Pluribus is to have drastically streamlined the Disaster Recovery procedures and brought down the RTO to minutes for the most critical applications , and a few hours for the entire infrastructure , when before , they were complex – leading to longer and mostly undeterministic RTO ,” said Bruno Franchetti , Chief Architect at Creval .
Application services can be distributed across both new data centres for resilience and there is complete flexibility in performing granular workload migration without impacting service performance . The IT team now has the choice to control when to move an entire service or all services from one site to the other , just by reconfiguring a pair of firewall interfaces and with minimal impact to the service availability .
Here , Bruno Franchetti , Chief Network Architect , Creval , discusses the solution implementation and its benefits .
Can you explain your role and the scope of your responsibility at Creval ?
I am the Chief Network Architect at Creval . I am responsible for the design and management of the corporate network , both in the data centres and the branch offices spread across Italy .
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