UK Law Firm Farrer Chooses Xsigo

Xsigo Systems, Inc. announced that Farrer and Company, an independent London-based law firm, has adopted Xsigo's virtual I/O technology to increase the flexibility of its IT infrastructure to continue to provide its clients with the highest possible customer service.

Thanks to the addition of three Xsigo I/O directors the law firm now enjoys quicker infrastructure configuration changes, a 33% reduction in the number of servers, and a remotely manageable DR site.

When Farrer and Co's IT administrators set out to upgrade and consolidate its server infrastructure, which consisted of 60 rack-mount servers equipped with direct attached storage, the team had a number of objectives in mind. These included providing clients with a faster, more responsive experience, providing a DR capability, and reducing the physical footprint of these systems. In fact, due to the rapid expansion of the IT department, every inch of floor space was being used, and a more efficient solution was required. The changing customs in the practice of law was also a pressing issue as client requests now have a much higher information technology component than in the past; more collaborative services and easier access to solicitors and information are now the rule, and Farrer and Co.'s IT team needed to respond quickly when these new demands arose.

To address these issues, the law firm selected two Xsigo I/O directors for its London data centre along with HP DL-series servers, VMware virtualisation software, and a Dell Compellent Storage Centre SAN. A scaled-down version of the same infrastructure was deployed at its DR facility. The Xsigo systems delivered more I/O per £ than the firm's legacy solution, they offered far greater management agility, and integrated into the existing SAN. With Xsigo, Farrer was able to configure physically isolated network and storage connections without relying on VLANs, a valuable assurance when handling confidential client data.

Andy Beech, IT Operations Manager at Farrer and Co., commented: "Our previous infrastructure was hardwired. Each server had direct attached storage, ran a specific application and was cabled into specific networks. Consequently, it was very difficult to match resources to workloads. We knew that server virtualisation would help, but we also wanted to ensure that our infrastructure would not limit either performance or flexibility."

"Only Xsigo provided the combination of attributes we wanted," said Peter East, Farrer's Infrastructure Supervisor. "When we evaluated Xsigo's fabric, we found that it was fast, resilient, and easily scaled. In addition, we found the highly intuitive Xsigo management environment met our objectives to simplify management and increase agility."

"With Xsigo virtual I/O, Farrer and company achieved the best of all possible outcomes: a lower cost infrastructure that provided greater management agility and a more responsive user experience," said Jon Toor, vice president of marketing at Xsigo. "This is a great example of what happens when forward-looking firms such as Farrer and Co. extend their virtualisation vision across the data centre to optimise efficiency throughout."