Cisco Cisco Nexus 5010 Switch Dépliant
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Challenge
In late 2006, brothers Mike and Simon Kelson decided on a strategic change
of direction for their company, Atlanta Technology. In addition to selling and
supporting customer-owned IT infrastructure, they started investing in their own
infrastructure in order to offer businesses hosted and managed services. Today,
although the company is still operating as a value-added reseller of hardware, the
balance is shifting in favor of services such as disaster recovery, cloud computing,
and storage and server virtualization.
of direction for their company, Atlanta Technology. In addition to selling and
supporting customer-owned IT infrastructure, they started investing in their own
infrastructure in order to offer businesses hosted and managed services. Today,
although the company is still operating as a value-added reseller of hardware, the
balance is shifting in favor of services such as disaster recovery, cloud computing,
and storage and server virtualization.
“We now have a platform that allows us to offer different alternatives to customers,”
says managing director Simon Kelson. “The new services grew very quickly in our
installed customer base, and now we’re winning new business with them too.”
says managing director Simon Kelson. “The new services grew very quickly in our
installed customer base, and now we’re winning new business with them too.”
It’s a different approach that enables Atlanta Technology to target any size of
company, from a one-person startup to organizations with hundreds or thousands of
employees. Business volumes are increasing steadily, and Simon believes that much
of the current demand in the market is driven by necessity, with companies unable to
delay investment any longer as the effects of the recession linger.
company, from a one-person startup to organizations with hundreds or thousands of
employees. Business volumes are increasing steadily, and Simon believes that much
of the current demand in the market is driven by necessity, with companies unable to
delay investment any longer as the effects of the recession linger.
Atlanta’s infrastructure consists of physical servers, each hosting several virtual
machines. It was possible to scale up the infrastructure by adding memory and
processing power to the servers, but Atlanta soon reached a limit on the number
of virtual machines that could operate on one physical host. The blockage was
caused by input/output (I/O), meaning the connections between the servers, the
network, and the storage devices.
machines. It was possible to scale up the infrastructure by adding memory and
processing power to the servers, but Atlanta soon reached a limit on the number
of virtual machines that could operate on one physical host. The blockage was
caused by input/output (I/O), meaning the connections between the servers, the
network, and the storage devices.
“We wanted a higher density of virtual machines without adding extra cabling, which pushes up energy costs and makes
maintenance more difficult,” says Mike Kelson, technical director. “We started looking at unified I/O, because it would allow
us to run network and storage traffic over the same cabling.”
maintenance more difficult,” says Mike Kelson, technical director. “We started looking at unified I/O, because it would allow
us to run network and storage traffic over the same cabling.”
Customer Case Study
© 2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information.
Page 1 of 4
Customer Name:
Atlanta Technology
Industry:
Information Technology
Location:
UK
Number of Employees:
18
Challenge
• Optimize use of data center assets
• Simplify infrastructure
• Support new strategic direction
• Simplify infrastructure
• Support new strategic direction
Solution
• Cisco Nexus 5000 Series Switches with
built-in Fibre Channel over Ethernet
Results
• Increased virtual machine density by
30-40 percent
• Reduced capital and operating costs
• Gained technology showcase and
• Gained technology showcase and
competitive advantage