Cisco Cisco Nexus 2224TP GE Fabric Extender Leaflet
Customer Case Study
© 2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Page 1 of 4
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF
WATER RESOURCES
WATER RESOURCES
● Government
● Sacramento, California
● 3500 Employees
● Sacramento, California
● 3500 Employees
CHALLENGE
● Collaborate with other government entities,
businesses, and citizens
● Reduce operational and capital costs
● Empower workforce to support the
● Empower workforce to support the
department’s missions
SOLUTION
● Borderless infrastructure based on Cisco Data
Center Business Advantage solutions
● Cisco Services for planning, design, and
implementation
RESULTS
● Enabled secure collaboration by creating 20
distinct security zones
● Reduced total cost of ownership for network
by 30 percent
● Accelerated network performance by 40
percent
State Agency Collaborates Securely with Outside Organizations
California Department of Water Resources enabled borderless collaboration with advanced data
center solutions.
Challenge
The California Natural Resources Agency restores, protects and manages
the state’s natural resources, including water. One of the largest
departments within the agency is the Department of Water Resources
(DWR), with about 3500 employees. DWR supplies and manages the
water delivery systems for California, provides flood protection through
improvement of California’s levees, inspects 1200 dams, and helps
coordinate the state’s integrated water management strategies.
To meet these goals, department personnel need to access and
manipulate large data sets to model the effects of the environment on
the water system. “Many of our missions require close collaboration
with other federal, state, and local government organizations, subject
matter experts, and the people of California,” says Tim Garza, chief
information officer for the Natural Resources Agency and the
Department of Water Resources.
Previously, DWR had limited ability to share data outside the
department, which made it difficult to make timely decisions. For
example, the data center network lacked the bandwidth for large file
transfers and server virtualization. In addition, the network had only two
security zones, for people inside and outside the firewall. The lack of flexibility meant that the department’s
environmental scientists could not invite federal government scientists to review environmental-impact studies on the
department’s servers.
DWR wanted a new data center infrastructure that could adapt easily to support changing business needs. The
immediate need was for borderless collaboration with all stakeholders, including local, state, and federal government
and private sector entities. To design the end-to-end IT infrastructure, DWR sought an experienced services partner.
“We wanted expert guidance to make sure the new infrastructure would be flexible, cost-effective, and adaptable to
future business needs and regulatory requirements,” Garza says. “Our primary goal was to make sure our IT
infrastructure acted as an enabler for the department’s business mission instead of a constraint.”
“We can more quickly model the effects of projected changes in water
flow and water level. Accelerated network performance and real-time
collaboration capabilities help us model more often, and with more
variables.”
flow and water level. Accelerated network performance and real-time
collaboration capabilities help us model more often, and with more
variables.”
– Steve Croft, IT Enterprise Architect Chief, California Department of Water Resources