Ameren Corp. has selected EMC Symmetrix VMAX storage array to manage its explosive data growth in a mission-critical Oracle database and custom application environment. This supports Ameren's new initiatives, while accelerating its adoption of a private cloud infrastructure with VMware vSphere virtualization and cloud infrastructure technologies.
EMC was recently named by customers as the #1 storage choice for Oracle and other mission-critical environments according to a survey by IDC(1). The survey ranks the storage vendors based on how end-users are deploying their technology with enterprise applications. In addition, EMC was also ranked as the top vendor for Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint, SAP, Business Intelligence, Analytics, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Home Directories.
Features include:
- Reduced annual capital expenses by 50% using EMC's Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST).
- Increased transactional performance by 30% and batch processing performance by nearly 20% using EMC VMAX.
- Consolidating on EMC VMAX enabled Ameren to achieve power and cooling savings of 28%.
- Ameren can now scale its data center to handle unpredictable growth from smart grid and business analytics.
With 100 terabytes of data being added to its infrastructure each year, Ameren was struggling to keep up with its data growth and increasing IT management costs while advancing its VMware virtualization and cloud computing strategy. Recognizing that emerging smart grid applications would increase data volumes even further, the company needed a way to reduce costs without limiting its ability to grow.
To meet its need for increased scalability and performance, Ameren deployed a VMAX storage system with enterprise Flash, Fibre Channel and SATA drives, while also taking advantage of EMC FAST to reduce costs dramatically.
To maximize uptime, Ameren uses EMC SRDF/A software, which replicates data between the VMAX system in the company's production data center and a second VMAX in its disaster recovery and development data center 100 miles away. Ameren manages its VMAX environment using EMC ControlCenter, Symmetrix Manager and Symmetrix Optimizer to simplify system configuration, monitor and control SRDF replicas, and optimize performance.
