Sheppard Robson Architects in London Replaces Data Center

Panzura, Inc., in unstructured data management in the cloud, announced that Sheppard Robson Architects LLP, an architecture practice in London, has replaced its aging storage infrastructure with a combination of Panzura and AWS for unstructured data, and Nimble Storage, Inc. for block data.

Not only did this hybrid cloud storage architecture eliminate the need for the traditional NAS storage model, but it also enabled Sheppard Robson to remove an entire data center being used for DR.

Sheppard Robson works on projects around the world from its HQs in London, with offices in Manchester, Glasgow and Abu Dhabi, as well as working with an outsource partner in Saigon. To handle the business-critical data generated by its employees, it had separate NAS infrastructures in place in addition to an offsite DR co-location.  However, bandwidth limitations with its internet connections created difficulties in delivering data to the DR location in a timely manner. Unstructured data was supposed to be automatically replicated offsite, but this wasn’t keeping up.

With the end of the expected lifespan of its NAS filers approaching, Sheppard Robson decided to refresh its infrastructure by implementing a hybrid cloud storage solution featuring Panzura Freedom Collaboration, Nimble Storage hybrid storage arrays from HPE, and Amazon S3.

“We’ve been able to move all our unstructured data to Panzura and all of our VMware clones and all the structured data to Nimble Storage, enabling us to decommission all the NetApp arrays that had been handling all that data. The combination of Panzura and Nimble Storage gives a complete, advanced hybrid cloud storage solution for both file and block data,” said Simon Johns, IT director, Sheppard Robson. “We completely removed our DR sites – a direct consequence of implementing Panzura.  As a result, we’ve been able to shut down an entire data center and provided collaboration between remote offices.“

Panzura Freedom Collaboration transforms cloud storage into primary file storage, combining the performance and features of an enterprise NAS with the economics, scalability, and durability of the cloud. It centralizes file data in the cloud, while keeping active data cached close to the users or applications.

When combining cloud storage availability and redundancy along with Panzura Integrated Snapshots, Freedom Collaboration replaces local Windows filers or NAS, and eliminates the need for separate backup, DR, and archive systems for that data, as well as WAN acceleration and expensive private networks needed for replication.

“We are excited that we were able to help Sheppard Robson overcome the complexity, cost, and inefficiency it was experiencing in trying to manage multiple tiers of structured and unstructured data across multiple locations,” said Patrick Harr, Panzura CEO.  “The combination of Panzura with Nimble Storage and Amazon S3 has enabled Sheppard Robson to deploy a modern hybrid cloud storage model that is more than just primary storage, but also eliminates the need for traditional disaster recover, backup, and archive.“