H10893 We Energies

WE ENERGIES
Energy utility consolidates and simplifies IT
operations with EMC solutions and services
With a reputation as one of the Midwest’s most reliable generators and distributors of
electricity, natural gas, and steam power, We Energies helps keep the power on for over
two million residential and commercial customers in Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula. The utility company also practices responsible environmental stewardship
and accountability by supporting and implementing new technologies for emissions
control, energy efficiency, and renewable energy resources, such as wind power.
EMC’s relationship with We Energies began a decade ago with the purchase of a few
ESSENTIALS
storage systems to support capacity requirements. Today, the utility operates a full
EMC® environment within its Pewaukee (PEDC) and Annex (ADC) data centers, which
Business Challenge
are outfitted with state-of-the-art EMC SAN, NAS, management, and backup/recovery
Consolidate and reduce the
solutions. These solutions, along with comprehensive support, help keep operations
complexities of a multi-vendor, multi-
running optimally 24x7.
system environment
EMC Solutions and Services
•
Avamar source-based
deduplication and backup
•
Centera content-addressed
storage
•
•
•
consultant.
LEADING THE WAY TO CONSOLIDATION AND
SIMPLICITY
Over the last few years, consolidating and reducing the complexities of We Energies’
previous multi-vendor, multi-system environment, and easing the pressures it imposed
deduplication and backup
on the utility’s lean IT staff, have been a priority. EMC Solutions and Services, including
Ionix ControlCenter for storage
Mid-range unified storage;
VMAX enterprise storage
•
equipment is functioning as it should be,” says Brian Wroblewski, senior information
Data Domain target-based
resource management
•
“EMC has always taken the time to ensure we are a satisfied customer and that our
Residency Services, Customer Support, and Education Services, were leveraged to help
it successfully navigate this major transition, while safeguarding day-to-day operations.
“Having an EMC Resident onsite who is familiar with the EMC equipment and able to get
our staff up to speed on how the new system works has made the whole transition go
smoothly,” explains Wroblewski. “We also benefitted from our EMC Resident’s prior
SRDF for remote replication and
experience working with other customers because he was able to oversee what we were
recovery; TimeFinder for local
doing, and led us in the direction of where we wanted to go in setting standards or
replication and recovery
configurations that would benefit our locations.”
EMC Global Services: Residency
The ability to centrally manage the environment was also a key factor in We Energies’
Services, Education Services,
decision to standardize with EMC solutions. In fact, EMC’s unified storage management
and EMC Customer Support
technology has been cited as one of the key enablers in helping the utility’s IT staff
including online support tools
quickly assimilate the many EMC hardware and software deployments and updates that
such as “Live Chat”,
have taken place.
Knowledgebase, and remote
monitoring (EMC Secure Remote
Support Gateway/ESRS)
CUSTOMER PROFILE
ESSENTIALS
Results
•
Consolidated and standardized
•
•
UNITING AND OPTIMIZING OPERATIONS
The deployment of two EMC Symmetrix® VMAX® storage arrays at PEDC and ADC sites
Reduced complexity and
are at the center of We Energies’ unification and simplification efforts. Purpose-built for
streamlined operations through
consolidation, performance, and automation, these two systems now support
EMC FAST and Virtual
everything from We Energies’ SAP, HR, outage management, billing, and email
Provisioning functionality
systems to its VMware® and Oracle virtualization platforms.
Centralized and simplified
We Energies’ Symmetrix VMAX infrastructure is optimized through the use of Fully
administration across the
Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) and Virtual Provisioning
infrastructure using EMC
technology which help the utility boost data center performance even higher and
software management tools
improve capacity utilization for added savings. Business continuity within this mission-
Eliminated tape and benefitted
critical environment is protected by various EMC local and remote replication
technologies, including EMC TimeFinder® and EMC SRDF®, as well as remote
monitoring service.
EMC deduplication and
Mid-range EMC unified storage systems were deployed to consolidate a NAS sharing
compression technology
system comprising multiple small boxes at several locations. Today, this environment
Leveraged comprehensive EMC
support including online support
tools, remote monitoring, and
monthly update meetings
Facilitated a smooth transition
with EMC Residency Services
•
unified interface also makes it easier for people to train and get to know the
transitioning to an EMC
backup and recovery through
•
Ionix™ ControlCenter® to help us simplify and centralize management. A simplified and
equipment.”
from faster and more reliable
•
says Wroblewski. “Instead, we can take advantage of all-encompassing tools like EMC
disparate systems by
information infrastructure
•
“With EMC equipment we no longer need to spread tasks among various components,”
Enabled IT team members to get
up to speed on hardware and
software with EMC Education
Services training
is contained within a single, centralized location within the main data center that
simplifies the infrastructure and makes it easier to support. In addition, site-to-site
replication ensures that an offsite copy of the utility’s entire EMC-based NAS
environment is maintained at the secondary data center to support rapid disaster
recovery should it be required.
Providing a similar, yet more reliable write once, read many times archival system,
cost-efficient, disk-based EMC Centera® content-addressed storage now resides in
place of an aging DVD jukebox that was no longer supported by the vendor.
TAPELESS BACKUP AND OTHER REPLICATION
ENHANCING TECHNOLOGIES
All of We Energies backups, including those for Microsoft® Windows®, UNIX, and
database servers were, until recently, supported using Tivoli technology. The tape silos
in place required frequent repair and necessitated the regular purchase of new tapes to
accommodate growing needs. An EMC Disk Library solution was implemented initially
to enable the utility to transition to a more dependable and less costly solution.
An EMC Avamar® source-based deduplication backup solution was later introduced by
the EMC team, followed by an EMC Data Domain® target-based deduplication and
compression offering. Both were offered as a means of further streamlining and
simplifying the utility’s backup and recovery environments—requiring a fraction of the
bandwidth, time, and cost of traditional replication methods.
“Avamar allowed us to greatly reduce our Tivoli licensing costs by enabling us to move
over 600 Windows servers to the Avamar system,” says Wroblewski. “That saved us a
couple hundred thousand dollars a year. The deduplication technology also enables us
to reduce storage consumption and labor costs. Tape restores used to take 18 to 20
hours. Now, with a couple of commands, we have our data within an hour.”
“We honestly couldn’t be happier with EMC. They don’t wait for
something to go wrong. They work with us to proactively run
the right performance tests and make any needed adjustments.
We have also received kudos from our internal customers about
how quickly we are able to react to their storage needs, and a
good deal of credit goes to EMC for this.”
Brian Wroblewski, Senior Information Consultant
The EMC team offered the Data Domain solution to quickly and efficiently back up We
Energies’ database servers, which were also using Tivoli.
“EMC brought in Data Domain, which is better suited for backing up larger database
servers, and let us test it out,” says Wroblewski. “Based on the success of that proof
of concept we are now in the process of finalizing a deal to purchase a Data Domain
solution to completely retire our Tivoli solution.”
SUPPORT, TOOLS, AND TRAINING BOLSTER
SUCCESS
In addition to EMC onsite Residency Services which were leveraged during the
consolidation process and VMAX system deployments, We Energies takes advantage
of a variety EMC support services and tools as well as EMC training to help keep
things running smoothly and improve the utility’s EMC environment going forward.
“Helpful for us is the fact that EMC offers a variety of ways to engage support
depending on what type of question or issue we have,” says Wroblewski. “Regardless
of the channel, we always get the fast response and answers we need.”
EMC ONLINE SUPPORT
Along with direct phone support for the most critical concerns, We Energies’ IT team
members use EMC “Live Chat” and the EMC Knowledgebase repository to quickly
secure answers to technical questions or get feedback on any problems that they may
be encountering.
“We are heavy users of ‘Live Chat’ for non-urgent issues as well as for more
challenging problems,” says Wroblewski. “Replies are quick and we like that we can
bounce back and forth without having to be tied to the phone for an extended period
of time. The online support tools also let us search for and reference whatever
document we need so we don’t have to keep a huge library of reference materials on
hand.” If any issues or potential problems arise, the EMC support center is
automatically notified in order to assess and remediate the situation. If onsite
response is required, a service request is automatically opened and local EMC support
technicians are promptly dispatched to the site to address the problem.
“Many times we didn’t know until after they had come and gone that they were here,”
says Wroblewski. “EMC Support can even do upgrades on the systems remotely
through ESRS which is much more convenient for us, especially for those updates
that need to be done off hours. It’s nice to know that ESRS is there and we don’t have
to worry about that aspect of the equipment.
“In our business, we have to take steps to protect against disasters,” states
Wroblewski. “We have been very fortunate thus far, but if something were to happen,
we have to be ready. Over the years, EMC has helped us to be prepared and has
shown us that if something were to happen, they would immediately respond to help
us work through it. There is peace of mind knowing the level of support we can
expect.”
“We have a true partnership with EMC. EMC’s local staff is really
familiar with our data center; they understand our
configurations and are more committed than other vendors we
have worked with in quickly troubleshooting and resolving any
issues that arise.”
Brian Wroblewski, Senior Information Consultant
CONVENIENT TRAINING OPTIONS
We Energies also takes advantage of various EMC Education Services training
options—from live online and classroom courses to web-based self-study—to help IT
team members get up to speed on EMC hardware and software. Training has
encompassed such areas as SAN and NAS system configuration and management,
backup, and disaster recovery.
COLLABORATION, GUIDANCE, AND TRUST
IMPROVE AND EVOLVE OPERATIONS
Every month, meetings with We Energies’ local EMC account team are held to present
technologies that may be of benefit; discuss the status of ongoing projects; review
equipment code levels to determine when and where updates are needed; and confer
about the progress of any open service cases.
“We have a true partnership with EMC,” says Wroblewski. “EMC’s local staff is really
familiar with our data center; they understand our configurations and are more
committed than other vendors we have worked with in quickly troubleshooting and
resolving any issues that arise—even when they involve other vendors’ products. It
doesn’t matter which channel we use. We know we will be working with someone who
has the expertise to get our issues resolved."
CONTACT US
To learn more about how EMC
products, services, and solutions can
help solve your business and IT
challenges, contact your local
representative or authorized reseller—
or visit us at www.EMC.com.
www.EMC.com
EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, Avamar, Centera, ControlCenter, Data Domain, Ionix, SRDF,
Symmetrix, TimeFinder, and VMAX, are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation
in the United States and other countries. VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the
United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their
respective owners. © Copyright 2012 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA.
07/12 Customer Profile H10893
EMC believes the information in this document is accurate as of its publication date. The
information is subject to change without notice.