File Server Consolidation

Enterprise Challenges

• File server proliferation has created an overly complex infrastructure with overlap and redundancy between servers.
• Maintenance of an ever-increasing number of servers results in higher management overhead costs.
• Service levels are adversely affected by the complexity of the file storage infrastructure.
• Organizations want to reduce the high overhead cost of data center power and real estate.

The Acopia Solution

Acopia's Adaptive Resource Switch (ARX) products eliminate much of the difficulty associated with server consolidation. With Acopia switching devices, IT staff can gradually migrate file data to different storage systems at their own pace without affecting business operations. Acopia switches provide a consistent, consolidated access point-a Global Namespace-to a virtual file storage pool that is transparent to changes in the file storage infrastructure.

Using Acopia switches, a storage administrator is able to execute a policy that migrates file data from a specific server to either another storage device or to many other storage devices. User access to file data through the ARX's Global Namespace remains unaffected by the migration occurring on the physical file storage devices. Once the data has been migrated off of the original file server, it can be decommissioned. This entire process takes place without incurring downtime.

Benefits of the Acopia Solution

• Allows organizations to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by optimizing the number of servers in the enterprise.
• Offers transparent migration that does not affect business operation.
• Provides flexible migration policies that allow migration to take place at the discretion of IT departments.
• Enables the transition to a file virtualization paradigm that simplifies management, optimizes utilization of file storage resources, and reduces IT operational costs.