Case Study regarding Impulse Advanced Communications' NexentaStor-based data storage deployment. This document is intended to complement the Nexenta Webinar titled: "Increasing Business Value Through High-Availability Technology"

1. NexentaStor™ Use Case:
Impulse Advanced Communications leverages NexentaStor to manage high-
availability infrastructure.
Business Overview Business Impact
Impulse Advanced Communications (www.impulse.net) is a service provider ➡ High-availability
that designs voice and data networks that prepare companies for growth. active-active fail-over
For over 15 years Impulse has helped businesses gain a technological to ensure data access
advantage by designing, implementing, and managing advanced around the clock
communications networks that enable a geographically unbound workforce.
Their services include FailSafe Internet Access, hosted VoIP, managed ➡ Rich feature-set that
hosting, and network design. tops legacy storage
solutions
Challenges ➡ Cost-effective
scalability
As a company specializing in a variety of IT services, it is imperative that Impulse’s internal
infrastructure is sound and has robust data management tools available. Like many other IT
service providers, Impulse was originally a customer of legacy storage vendors. Impulse
started with the NetApp® Filer, however Impulse quickly out-grew capacity and, when it
came time to expand, Impulse faced a hefty price tag.
After its experience with NetApp, Impulse decided to try a different service provider:
EMC®. Impulse deployed the EMC NS352 Celerra to manage their data storage needs. Soon
Impulse discovered, however, that EMC’s technology had some technological short-comings.
For example, the EMC NS352 maxed out with 2 GB/sec
through put, resulting in networking bandwidth that was too
low.
When they calculated they would also max out their existing
storage, Impulse decided to evaluate other storage solutions
that would mitigate costs and provide better, more robust data
management software than the technology offered through
NetApp and EMC.
Solution Overview
NexentaStor is the leading storage platform built upon the ZFS

2. system. After consulting with Pogo Linux – a Nexenta Certified Partner – to consider
“To meet our storage
alternative storage technologies, Impulse selected the pre-configured and pre-tested Pogo
growth, we had to
StorageDirector Z2 HA Cluster SAN solution – certified for NexentaStor Enterprise – to upgrade our existing
implement a business continuity strategy that’s ready to be deployed in hours, not months. EMC appliance.
Below are some highlights of Impulse’s use of NexentaStor: However, we chose to
replace EMC with
✦ Data is Highly Accessible: As an IT service provider, high-availability data storage is NexentaStor instead.
Nexenta provided best-
a must for Impulse. It’s important to make data accessible to Impulse customers around
in-class features and had
the clock. NexentaStor supports high availability storage and Impulse trusts that their superior performance
information will be available no matter where or when it’s accessed, who needs to compared to the EMC
access it, or what device is used to do so. appliance.”
-Jessie Bryan, Dir. of Systems
✦ Applications Hosted from Two Datacenters: Impulse has deployed two Engineering at Impulse
datacenters from remote locations, one of which being a Nexenta HA deployment. The Advanced Communications
two systems are connected to a single JBOD with active-active configuration.
✦ VMware® ESX: Since virtualization is a tool often used by Impulse, it was important
that their storage solution support VMware-based activities. Impulse’s
Configuration
NexentaStor Benefits
NexentaStor helps enterprise customers implement cost-effective, high performance storage
by taking advantage of NexentaStor features like in-line de-duplication, unlimited snap-shots,
Pogo Storage Director Z2 HA
thin provisioning, and high availability clustering. Below are some NexentaStor benefits which Cluster SAN solution, a pre-
apply to high-availability use cases like Impulse’s: tested and pre-configured
Nexenta certified high-
availability storage solution
✦ Eliminating a single point of failure with ‘active-active’ fail-over to a standby system. from Pogo Linux featuring:
✦ Establishing fail-over groups and implement highly cost-effective disaster recovery NexentaStor
• Version 3.0.4
• HA Cluster Plug-In
✦ Achieve zero data loss and downtime with half the complexity of other storage solutions
• 24TB box and an expansion
license
✦ Automate and non-disruptively test fail-over/fail-back
18 web, email, database servers
✦ The option to set up manual and automated fail-over of critical applications and services for:
in a clustered environment.
• 250 Servers
• 5,000 websites
• 10,000 Zimbra Mailboxes
• Zimbra Nightly Backups
About Nexenta
Nexenta, NexentaStor™
Founded in 2005 and privately held, Nexenta Systems, Inc., has and NexentaOS™ are
Nexenta Systems, Inc. developed NexentaStor™, the leading OpenStorage licensed trademar ks of
444 Castro Street, Suite 320 enterprise class storage solution and sponsors NexentaCore, Nexenta Systems, Inc. All
Mountain View, CA 94041 USA an operating system that combines the high performance and other trademarks are the
+ 001 877.862.7770 reliability of OpenSolaris with the ease of use and breadth of proper ties of their
www.nexenta.com applications of Linux. Both solutions leverage the revolutionary respective owners. 12-9-10
file system ZFS.