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Schindler
C A S E S T U D Y
Group
QLogic 6140 Router Elevates
Enterprise Application
Deployment
Challenge
Find a way to lower the cost and speed up the testing of
new enterprise software in a SAN environment.
Solution
The QLogic® SANbox® 6140 Intelligent Storage Router
provides inexpensive server access to a SAN using iSCSI
over existing Ethernet cabling. The test SAN consists of
a 1TB Hitachi Data Systems® Thunder 9500™ V Series
Modular Storage Array and a Hewlett-Packard® ProLiant®
DL360 server running Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®
Result
By using the QLogic SANbox 6140 Intelligent Storage
Router, the time to conduct proof-of-concept tests
dropped from over a week to a day and a half. The
improved productivity allowed IT staff to use personnel
resources more effectively. New applications can be
deployed to customers faster and with less impact on
the busy IT department
Following the introduction of their first electric elevator in Lucerne, Switzerland,
in 1890, and with a company history dating all the way back to 1874, the
Schindler Group today is one of the oldest and most successful providers of
transportation systems, elevators, and escalators in the entire world.
And like every large business in the world today, IT management has become
an essential component to maintaining the company’s competitive edge.
Maximizing the efficiency of 3,000 mobile employees across the United States
is just one of the ways the Schindler Group can stay ahead of the game. As
Ed Torres, data center manager for North American operations, noted, “New
applications need to work reliably when we deploy them to our maintenance
technicians and field sales representatives. Otherwise, we will not see the
productivity benefits. That requires a lot of testing on our part, which can be
expensive and time-consuming.”
Torres recently sought to cut the cost of testing while also reducing the time
spent testing so applications could be deployed to the field even faster. “Our
proof-of-concept test environment was composed of expensive Brocade®
SilkWorm® switches with Fibre Channel connections between the servers and
the SAN,” he said. “But configuration complexity caused testing to take weeks
and consume the time of key IT staff members. We needed to find a better,
faster way to accelerate the deployment of new applications.”
Schindler moves to QLogic router
It was clear to Torres that simplifying the test environment was the place to
begin. “We knew that moving from Fibre Channel to iSCSI would bring down
connectivity costs as well as reduce the labor involved in configuring the test
environment,” Torres said.
After reviewing alternative iSCSI SAN routers, Torres decided to evaluate the
QLogic SANbox 6140 Intelligent Storage Router. “It looked like the QLogic
router configuration wizard would simplify SAN management and save staff
time,” Torres said. “We were also impressed by the responsiveness of QLogic
in answering our questions.”
“The QLogic SANbox 6140 Intelligent Storage Router gives us a rapid and cost-effective way to test new enterprise applications in a SAN environment, which helps
us get new software applications to our users faster.”
—Ed Torres, Data Center Manager, The Schindler Group
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Schindler Group
Fibre Channel
QLogic SANbox 6140
Intelligent Storage Router
HP ProLiant DL360 Server Running
Red Hat Enterprise Linux OS
Fibre Channel Switch
Fibre Channel
Hitachi Data Systems Thunder 9500
V Series Modular Storage Array
iSCSI
C AS E S T U DY
QLogic router accelerates set up of the iSCSI test environment
The planned introduction of Web-based SAP NetWeaver® business
applications provided Torres and his colleagues the opportunity to
evaluate the benefits of iSCSI in the test environment. “Our mobile
workforce spends a lot of time assessing the health of our machines
in the field. But they must return to the office to enter their findings
into our systems,” Torres said. “NetWeaver provides a way for our
employees to enter this information at the customer location, which
would significantly increase their productivity and enable them to serve
more customers.”
To evaluate how well NetWeaver met those objectives, the Schindler
IT staff set up a test environment consisting of a Hewlett-Packard
server running the Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system along
with a Hitachi storage array—all connected through the QLogic
SANbox 6140 Intelligent Storage Router, which replaced a legacy
Brocade SilkWorm router in the process.
The primary benefit of the QLogic SANbox router was the dramatic
reduction in time and effort required for application testing. The QLogic
router proved easy to configure; one person needed just a day and
a half to install the test environment. By contrast, installation of the
more expensive Brocade router was complex and time-consuming,
taking three staff members one week to set up, according to Torres.
us to quickly set up the test to show that the NetWeaver application
could be used in the field,” he explained. “In less than two days, we
implemented the test, and we could see how information could be
sent from the field to any one of our 600 field offices—significantly
increasing our competitive position.”
Torres expects to test many more Web-based productivity tools with
the NetWeaver platform. With the new test environment, that can now
be accomplished quickly and with little impact on staff.
“People joke about the elevator industry having its ups and downs,”
said Torres, “but with the QLogic 6140 router, we can look forward
to continuously moving upward in deploying applications to help the
company be more successful.”
“Using the QLogic router eliminated the time spent allocating Fibre
Channel ports on the fabric, creating separate zones, and running
expensive Fibre Channel cables throughout the SAN infrastructure,”
Torres explained. “We plan to leave the QLogic router permanently
attached to the LAN, so we can just plug servers into the LAN and
initiate iSCSI on those servers. The router automatically discovers the
servers, and we can quickly map those servers to the SAN storage we
want them to use.”
iSCSI gives Schindler a cost advantage by using fewer ports
The QLogic router connects to the SAN using fewer ports than the
Brocade SilkWorm switch, cutting costs per port. Torres said, “With
QLogic interswitch links, stacked router interconnects do not consume
valuable ports—unlike the Brocade switches, where interswitch links
consume usable ports.”
Schindler achieves rapid application deployment to field employees
After the successful lab tests of NetWeaver showed the application
could work reliably, the Schindler IT staff is moving field employees to
the NetWeaver Web platform, Torres said. “The QLogic router allowed
QLogic router with iSCSI connectivity makes application testing fast
and cost-effective
As seen in this illustration, the QLogic 6140 Intelligent Storage Router provides
inexpensive iSCSI connections between a Hewlett-Packard ProLiant DL360 server
running SAP NetWeaver business applications and the Hitachi Storage Systems 95
Thunder 9500 V Series Modular Storage Array. The router allows staff to quickly set
up a test environment to evaluate the reliability of enterprise applications.
Corp orat e He adquarters QLogic Corporation 26 650 Aliso V iejo Parkway Ali so Viejo, C A 92656 94 9.38 9.6000 www.qlogic.com
© 2007 QLogic Corp. All Rights Reserved. QLogic, the QLogic logo, Powered by QLogic and SAN box are trademarks or registered trademark s of QLogic Corporation. All other brands and product names are tradem arks or registered trademarks of their respect ive
holders. Informat ion supplied by QLogic C orporation is believed to be accurate and reli able. QLogic Corporation a ssumes no responsibility for any errors in this brochure.
SN0130962-00 Rev A 5/07
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