CASE STUDY TECHNOLOGY Polycom Consolidates Data Center Footprint and Improves Power Availability with RagingWire Colocation and Remote Hands and Eyes Ser vice
We turned over day-to-day operations and support of Polycom s servers to RagingWire s Remote Hands and Eyes technicians. Whatever we need, they can do it for us. - Elias Dimitropoulos IT Director for Networking, Unified Communications, and Data Centers ABSTRACT Polycom is the world s leading provider of video and voice conferencing technologies. Their highdefinition video conferencing tools and speakerphones are used by over 400,000 companies and organizations. In 2006, Polycom moved its California-based, internal IT infrastructure footprint which hosts its production ERP environment, email system, and customer service tools into RagingWire s Sacramento data center. Over time, as Polycom added additional servers in various locations in the Sacramento facility, their footprint became troublesome and expensive to maintain, and some of the servers became outdated or obsolete. Originally, Polycom intended to correct the situation by moving their servers into a new data center near their San Jose, CA, headquarters. However, after RagingWire proposed a consolidation of their IT infrastructure, Polycom chose to keep their footprint in the Sacramento data center. Over several months, RagingWire s Remote Hands and Eyes technicians moved Polycom s servers into a new cage environment. Polycom also updated part of their footprint with new hardware, performed extensive virtualization, and moved its internal video servers from a data center in Colorado to RagingWire s Sacramento facility. When the new cage went live, RagingWire s Remote Hands and Eyes team took over the daily management and operation of Polycom s physical IT footprint. After doing a power consumption analysis of their IT servers, RagingWire was also able to provide Polycom with a solution for better, more efficient power distribution. Ultimately, the consolidation proved to be a win-win for both Polycom and RagingWire. Polycom is the world s leading provider of voice and video conferencing systems, serving over 400,000 clients. THE COMPANY With over 400,000 clients, Polycom is the world s leading provider of video and voice conferencing solutions. Polycom s triangular SoundStation speakerphones are a familiar centerpiece of conference room tables, and its high-definition video communications platforms are used in board rooms and company and university auditoriums throughout the world. With Polycom s mobile solutions, participants can attend video conferences from any location, using devices such as tablets and smartphones. Our focus is on quality and enterprise-class collaboration, explains Elias Dimitropoulos, IT Director for Networking, Unified Communications, and Data Centers at Polycom. By combining our video and voice conferencing technologies with content sharing solutions, we help companies and organizations to collaborate and share information more effectively, making them more productive. Our products are based on international voice and video standards, which makes them easy to deploy, use, and interoperate with other Unified Communications environments and business software tools. 2015 RagingWire Data Centers. All rights reserved. 2
Over several years, Polycom installed its California-based internal IT footprint in multiple locations within RagingWire s Sacramento data center, causing their footprint to become troublesome and costly to maintain. THE CHALLENGE In 2005, Polycom chose RagingWire s Sacramento data center to host its California-based internal IT servers. The internal IT footprint hosts Polycom s back-end business systems, including their production Oracle ERP environment, e-mail systems, financial records, and Siebel customer support systems used by Polycom s call centers. Over several years, Polycom expanded its footprint at the Sacramento data center, adding new racks and servers as its business needs grew. However, their server racks were scattered throughout the Sacramento facility in different locations. Over time, Polycom s internal footprint became difficult to maintain, and costly to operate. Also, many servers in Polycom s footprint became outdated or obsolete. When our contract came up for renewal, our original intent was to move our servers out of RagingWire s data center, and into a facility that was closer to our San Jose, California headquarters, says Dimitropoulos. We wanted our internal team of engineers to have easier access to our IT footprint to service and maintain it. But we also needed a data center with the same high-density power and cooling architecture that RagingWire offers. We needed to make sure our back-end IT footprint would always be up and running, since it would mean a major loss of business and client information for us if it ever went down. THE SOLUTION RagingWire presented Polycom with a proposal to use RagingWire s Remote Hands and Eyes services to consolidate Polycom s racks and servers into one single cage at the Sacramento facility, improving maintainability and reducing costs. Polycom accepted this proposal, and chose to stay with RagingWire, instead of moving their IT footprint to another data center. RagingWire consolidated Polycom s IT data center footprint, moving servers and other equipment into a new single cage environment. RagingWire s Remote Hands and Eyes technicians also took over on-site operations of Polycom s new IT footprint at Sacramento. It would have been very costly and extremely painful, not to mention very risky, to move all our servers into a new facility, says Dimitropoulos. In the end, our safest avenue was to stay in the physical facility we were in. We renegotiated our cost of services with RagingWire, and agreed to let them consolidate our footprint. We also agreed to let RagingWire s Remote Hands and Eyes technicians take over the everyday operations of our physical IT infrastructure at the Sacramento facility. BENEFITS A CONSOLIDATED IT FOOTPRINT Over a period of five months, RagingWire s technicians consolidated Polycom s IT footprint, moving servers and other equipment (e.g., networking, SAN, storage) from several locations in the Sacramento data center into a new, single cage environment. RagingWire assigned a client services project manager to coordinate with Polycom and schedule the moves, while RagingWire s Remote Hands and Eyes services team handled deployment of the new cage, installation of power circuits and network cabling, and moving the hardware. Obviously, it would have been too disruptive to our business operations to move all of Polycom s IT footprint at once, says Dimitropoulos. So RagingWire s project manager worked with us to schedule the equipment moves during off-peak hours. We would select which group of servers we wanted to move next. Then RagingWire s Remote Hands and Eyes team would start moving those servers at, say, 10 PM on a Friday night, and have them up and running in the new cage by 7 AM Saturday morning. They would then close out the work order, and wait for the next set of instructions from us. 2015 RagingWire Data Centers. All rights reserved. 3
During this time, we gave business units at Polycom the chance to upgrade their infrastructure. We decommissioned obsolete or unused servers, and replaced them with new or virtualized servers. Thanks to this consolidation, Polycom achieved a 30+% reduction in the overall cost to maintain our IT footprint. REMOTE HANDS AND EYES SERVICES RagingWire s Remote Hands and Eyes technicians were constantly in touch with us during the consolidation, says Dimitropoulos. They consulted with us on the logistics of the move, where to put servers in the new cage, and how to handle any little problems that cropped up. When all the equipment moves were done, RagingWire s technicians shut down Polycom s old servers that were no longer in use and decommissioned our old cages. Once the new cage went live, we turned over day-to-day operations and support of Polycom s servers to the Remote Hands and Eyes technicians. Whatever we need, they can do it for us. They can install new equipment, check the health of our servers, and change tapes, data cards, or hard drives for us. We still have control of our IT footprint, thanks to RagingWire s N-Matrix SM Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) tool. But it s far more cost effective for us to use RagingWire s Remote Hands and Eyes services than to have our own technicians on-site every day at the data center. RagingWire s patented 2N+2 design makes it easy and safe to add power while maintaining 100% availability. FLEXIBLE POWER OPTIONS At RagingWire s Sacramento data center, they have local utility power feeds, an on-site power station, diesel-fueled generators, and Uninterruptible Power Supplies, says Dimitropoulos. With their patented 2N+2 architecture, RagingWire has the redundant, high-density power and cooling to ensure that Polycom s IT footprint will always be up and running. Also, RagingWire s flexibility allows us to easily adjust our power commitment as we add or remove servers. For example, at the end of our consolidation, we decided to move our internal video servers from a data center in Colorado, and add them to our IT footprint in Sacramento. These high-density servers handle internal video conferencing for Polycom, and we use them in product demonstrations for our customers. RagingWire s technicians provided additional power to our cage for the new servers, and we didn t have to renegotiate our contract with them in order to get that extra power. IMPROVED POWER DISTRIBUTION RagingWire has helped us to make better use of our power consumption, says Dimitropoulos. Now that our footprint is all in one cage, we have a better idea of the total amount of power needed to run it. Although we have added additional servers in the new cage since the move, we are still using less power now than before the consolidation, and we are using it more effectively. Additionally, RagingWire helped us to improve our power distribution and redundancy. Each of our server racks has dual Power Distribution Units (PDUs). Under normal circumstances, each PDU is only supposed to be used at up to 40% capacity. If one PDU fails, the other PDU will take over power distribution for that rack at up to 80% capacity, which is the maximum power level a PDU can take. However, RagingWire did an analysis of Polycom s power levels in the new cage, and discovered that some of our PDUs were running at higher than 40% capacity. If one of those PDUs failed, the other PDU for that rack would be overloaded at more than 80% capacity. The PDU would probably fail, and bring the server rack down as well. 2015 RagingWire Data Centers. All rights reserved. 4
RagingWire informed us of this problem, and recommended that we use higher capacity PDUs for each rack, to spread the power load of circuits more efficiently. That way, we could supply more power to each individual rack, but each circuit was taxed less. With the additional redundancy, there was better distribution of power and less risk of total power failure if one of the PDUs failed. Multi-factor security provides controlled on-site access to Polycom s cage. Robust telecommunications to Polycom s headquarters means their IT team is always connected to their computing systems. CONNECTIVITY AND SECURITY RagingWire s technicians set up MPLS and internet connections between our new consolidated footprint and Polycom s headquarters, says Dimitropoulos. We cross-connect to our internal servers through RagingWire s carrier closet. Also, our new cage environment has dual security access, using key cards and PIN codes. Only RagingWire s technicians and Polycom s designated employees can access it. No one else can enter the cage without prior authorization from us and RagingWire. There is continuous logging of access to all points in the data center, and all areas are monitored by security cameras, so we can go on RagingWire s web site and find out who accessed our area at what times. RagingWire has a highly professional staff that is very attentive to their customers needs. With the consolidation, and with their Remote Hands and Eyes support of our footprint, they ve shown us they are willing to go the extra mile to ensure that Polycom gets the best possible service. Ultimately it worked out very well, and it was a real success story for both sides. RagingWire Data Centers designs, builds, and operates mission critical data centers that deliver 100% availability and high-density power. The company has nearly 1 million square feet of data center infrastructure in Northern California and Ashburn, Virginia and is affiliated with the global network of 130 data centers under the Nexcenter TM brand operated by NTT Communications. RagingWire s patented power delivery systems and EPA ENERGY STAR rated facilities lead the data center market in reliability and efficiency. With flexible colocation solutions for retail and wholesale buyers, a carrier neutral philosophy, and the highest customer loyalty in the industry as measured by the Net Promoter Score, RagingWire meets the needs of top internet, enterprise, and government organizations. More information is available at www.ragingwire.com. TAKE THE NEXT STEP. To learn more about RagingWire data center solutions, contact us. Phone: 866-599-0998 Email: info@ragingwire.com www.ragingwire.com 2015 RagingWire Data Centers. All Rights Reserved. RagingWire logo and certain RagingWire product names are the property of RagingWire Data Centers. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.