At a glance Country: ItalyIndustry: DistributionFounded: 1956Employees: 47Website: www.sogemispa.it

ChallengeSogeMi works with around 220 companies, providing them with trading spaces to sell their products. Data on contracts, mapping of spaces being used, and information on access is a valuable asset for the company; conserving it requires efficiency and high levels of automation.

SolutionTo streamline and optimize a backup process previously heavily dependent on manual operations, SogeMi opted for pair of FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS CS800 systems – a backup and deduplication appliance with automatic replication, significantly reducing disk-space requirements and strengthening the company’s disaster protection plans.

Benefit■ Centralization of disk backups

■ Deduplication and full replication on the two installed systems

■ Ability to continue using pre-existing backup software

■ Up to 60 percent reduction in resources required

Fujitsu storage systems provide a strong mix of technical features to streamline and optimize SogeMi’s backup process.

Guido Gandino Head of ICT Systems SogeMi

“ Thanks to FUJITSU ETERNUS CS800 systems, the initial need to automate and centralize the disk backup process fitted in perfectly with our disaster protection policy.”

CUSTOMER CASE STUDY

ChallengeSogeMi’s IT structure is extremely contained but handles a number of critical applications, such as monitoring vehicles and people who access the trading spaces, collecting parking fees, administering real estate and producing daily price lists. The quantity of data generated has grown over time and required a switch to an automated and centralized solution for disk backup management. In addition, there was a need for deduplication and replication at a second company site, to provide top-level disaster recovery.

SolutionHaving identified its requirements and performed a rapid analysis of the options on the market, SogeMi opted to install a pair of FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS CS800 systems at its two offices, located a few hundred meters apart and connected by fiber optic cables. “From a technical point of view, the decision came down to having two appliances that could independently automate the entire backup process,” says Guido Gandino, Head of ICT at SogeMi. “However, brand strength and the price-performance ratio were also key factors.” The new solution has brought a reduction of more than 50 percent in the resources needed for backup operations, which previously had to be performed largely manually. The support of Soteha, a Fujitsu SELECT Expert Partner, was essential for fast implementation and successful migration without the requirement for additional investments.

BenefitData conservation and protection are especially important for SogeMi. In fact, the company does not just rent out space for the wholesale agrifood trade but is also responsible for running the premises, managing relationships with around 220 clients and overseeing ingoing and outgoing vehicles and people. “IT is a core component of the company’s business,” Gandino says. “For example, one of the most important applications monitors daily vehicle traffic, ensuring they are compliant with legal requirements and managing the collection of parking fees at the markets. This activity generates revenue of 2.8 million euros a year.” From allocating spaces to invoicing, service charges to the daily price list, statistics on goods-in and goods-out to producing the financial statements, everything goes through SogeMi’s IT infrastructure, which is built around a massive twin data center connected by about 500 meters of fiber optic cable.

The combination of activities generates an increasing amount of data, which is important for contract management and mapping occupied spaces. Gandino says: “Just a short time ago, data was saved in two different ways, on physical servers and on automated tape libraries. The management was complicated and had to be done manually to switch over the memory disks and to check that operations had been successfully completed.”

The need for a more efficient backup process led the company to search for a solution that, first of all, allowed for the use of a hard disk. In addition, SogeMi wanted a system that provided for centralized saving, before automatically synchronizing across two different machines, with integrated deduplication and replication. The decision to opt for FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS CS800 was initially driven by the ability to install two 8TB appliances at the company’s two sites, enabling full automation of the backup process. “Other major factors were the brand’s reputation, guaranteed product reliability, and a better price-performance ratio than the other solutions we looked at,” adds Gandino.

The implementation process and roll-out was extremely fast and took just one day, partly because the systems arrived fully pre-configured by Soteha, a Fujitsu SELECT Expert Partner, which supported the client throughout the project. At the moment, around 4TB of data is backed-up each day from the eight servers in SogeMi’s data center. “It was also important to be sure of rapid execution,” says Gandino. “The Fujitsu ETERNUS CS800 systems deduplicate the data so that backups can be completed overnight.”

The new solution has enabled the IT department to cut the amount of time dedicated to backups by around 60 percent, with direct benefits on staff efficiency and costs.

Soteha was founded around 20 years ago and now has two offices (Milan and Rome), about 15 internal staff and about another 15 working as partners or contractors. Its areas of activity span infrastructure management, networks and telecommunications, and web technologies. “We’ve been working closely with Fujitsu for a number of years and are particularly interested in their ‘in-a-box’ solutions, which are ready to use, easy to install and certified,” says Silvio Menchise, Technical Division Manager at Soteha. “We provided SogeMi with our infrastructure expertise to properly calibrate the solution and implement it without impacting existing infrastructure.”

Thanks to the capabilities of the FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS CS800 and Soteha’s expertise, the new solution was installed without having to replace the existing backup software (Retrospect), meaning no additional investments were needed. In addition, the project was designed to integrate into SogeMi’s overall disaster recovery and protection policy, which calls for the replication of all settings and data, as well as backups on physical external hard drives, so that action can be taken even in particularly critical situations. SogeMi’s full satisfaction with the solution adopted and the support it received has led it to consider Fujitsu technology and Soteha’s expertise for future development of the data center, which is already in the planning stage. “The mix between technical features and the price-performance ratio were the reasons we chose Fujitsu products,” concludes Gandino.

CustomerSogeMi is a corporation that manages all of Milan’s wholesale agrifood markets on behalf of the municipality (fruit and vegetables, fish, poultry and flowers). The company manages the premises and associated services, over an area covering around 6,800 square meters. About 8,000 people work within SogeMi spaces, buying and selling goods on behalf of their companies. About 500 trucks arrive each day to deliver various products, with around 4,000 buyers visiting to purchase goods to be distributed mainly to local markets, retailers and restaurants.

Products and services ■ 8TB FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS CS800 at Site A■ 8TB FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS CS800 at Site B■ Guarantee covering the products’ excellent reliability

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