NetApp takes Suncorp to the cloud

Peter Dinham
Thursday, 01 October 2009 12:37

IT Industry - Deals

Queensland-based national banking and financial services group, Suncorp, has consolidated its storage environment and implemented an IT as-a-service model based on a dynamic data centre concept developed by NetApp.

Suncorp group executive business technology, Jeff Smith, said today the company had decided it was time to consolidate and standardise its storage environment with NetApp as its annual storage growth was unsustainable.

Smith said the overhaul had allowed Suncorp to standardise the management of its storage environment, enabling greater storage efficiencies and improving service levels across its business.

Under the agreement, Suncorp is deploying NetApp FAS6070, FAS6080 and FAS6030 systems, VMware and storage virtualization technologies for its storage, network and hosting infrastructure.

Smith said the administration, provisioning and monitoring of Suncorp’s storage environment is being simplified with SnapDrive, SnapManager, SnapVault, SnapMirror, Operations Manager, Multistore and FlexClone from NetApp.

According to Smith, the NetApp implementation has allowed Suncorp to reduce its data centres from three locations to two, with the pre-production and production data centres linked by IP-SAN. 

“We worked with NetApp to create a best practice design for our storage infrastructure through the use of virtualization.  By implementing NetApp, Cisco and VMware technology, we have increased our storage efficiency, introduced greater flexibility and reduced our total IT costs.  We have also improved our ability to develop and bring new product and service applications to market and respond to customer demands quickly.”

NetApp Australia and New Zealand area VP, Peter O’Connor, said Suncorp was one of the first customers in the world to virtualize its core and aggregation layers with Cisco Nexus 7000 switches.

“NetApp demonstrated the importance of using a standards-based approach for the administration of a storage environment to deliver greater storage efficiencies, reduce the cost of ownership, and enable business breakthroughs.  Our partnership with Suncorp is a shining example of how our innovative technologies continue to meet the market’s demand for solutions that address real business challenges.”