Raidix Storage Selected by Russian Railways

Raidix LLC has delivered an integrated storage solution for backup and virtualization to Russian Railways Jsc.

Active project-flow involved 12 months of implementation, customization and personnel training. At this point, Raidix provides continuous system maintenance and technical support to Russian Railways.

Challenge

Russian Railways is listed among the top three railway companies in the world. It’s a state-owned transport organization that covers 26.4% of passenger flow, 45.3% of cargo turnover and 85,200km of railroads in the Russian Federation.

Russian Railways encompasses 16 regional branches, each of them hosting a data computing center. The main data center is located in Moscow. Russian Railways runs three data centers in Moscow and two more at Oktyabrskaya and Sverdlovskaya railway branches. Regional offices employ versatile software systems.

Configuring fast and reliable backup
Russian Railways operates under high workloads and has to limit its regular backup operations to the night time. The standard duration is between two to eight hours depending on specific hardware and current tasks. Aside of performance, the company requires reliability of copy operations and fast data reading.

The customer specified the task of archiving from multi-purpose siloed IT systems: corporate email, unified payment system, management information system, etc. Compatibility with existing software infrastructure (Windows, MAC OS, Linux, Solaris and HP-UX OSs as well as NetBackup and Veeam Backup software) was another critical requirement for the solution provider.

Virtualization of the I&C system
Russian Railways required a standard hardware suite to support infrastructure virtualization in the regional branches. On top of the priority list, the customer emphasized robust reliability and compatibility with VMware.

Russian Railways was looking for a reliable fault-tolerant storage system with minimal RTO and RPO.

Solution

Raidix delivered a failure-resistant storage with reliable backup, fast data access and archiving from siloed IT systems. The solution met RTO and RPO requirements and addressed high workloads.

It delivered a total of 80 single-controller storage systems to the customer’s data centers. All systems provided the capacity of 10TB and used the mirroring technology. Besides, Raidix team performed a hardware upgrade for optimal performance, added functionality and integration with Active Directory.

The Raidix storage system met the standards and requirements of Russian Railways, enabling fault-tolerance storage, centralized data archiving from the siloed IT infrastructure and support for the third party software.

Project milestones

Delivery to datacenters
On stage one, Raidix configured and delivered Raidix-powered hardware to Russian Railways’ data centers, and performed post-delivery fine-tuning and on-site personnel training. The total delivery batch included 80 single-controller storage systems.

Delivery to I&C centers
On the next step, Raidix shipped 36 fault-tolerant two-controller systems, 16 disks each. All storage systems come with the capacity of 10TB and mandatory mirroring. This delivery catered to virtualization of Russian Railways’ IT infrastructure.

Within a month’s time, all storage systems entered into service. After delivery and hardware configuration, Raidix team members organized on-site training workshops for employees of the regional branches and the main data center.

Maintenance and updates
On stage three, the Raidix engineers performed equipment and software upgrade, as well as Active Directory integration. In the maintenance period, Raidix commits to support of the implemented Raidix AERO solution, including regular updates and customization according to evolving customer challenges. The software upgrades allow for increased storage reliability and performance in line with the growing IT infrastructure of Russian Railways.

Business impact

The solution by Raidix has secured data integrity and smooth workflow of the extensive Russian Railways network. AERO caters to high workloads and stringent customer requirements in part of high operational speeds and data availability 99,999.

At present, the Raidix team provides consistent project maintenance and all-round consultancy on software and hardware issues.

Benefits: