ActiveTrail Selects Karminario SSD SAN K2

Kaminario,
Inc. announced that ActiveTrail Ltd, in web-based email marketing solutions and services, has
selected the recently announced Kaminario K2 all solid-state SAN storage
solution to support its Microsoft SQL Server database environment.

The new
Kaminario K2 is an all solid-state SAN system to deliver fast database performance without compromising on high
availability within a single enclosure. It provides enterprise
application performance, reliability and protection at a lower price and
footprint than legacy SAN storage.

To be competitive in this crowded market, ActiveTrail needed
to increase and enhance its service and offerings to its customers by expanding
its web-based mail delivery and reporting. ActiveTrail uses a Microsoft SQL
Server database running on NAS to support
its web-based email marketing and reporting infrastructure. The storage latency
was too high, negatively affecting its end-user response time and batch
processing duration. To address this, ActiveTrail split the processing into
four different SQL Server instances on the NAS infrastructure. While this
slightly improved the application response time, it included maintenance
overhead at a higher cost.

According to ActiveTrail’s CTO, Rafael Asor: "This did not give us the performance we
required to run queries or generate statistical reports for our customers. The
storage could not handle the demand."

For example, in one case where
clients needed to upload an XLS file of their email addresses, it was taking
more than 10 minutes. In other cases where clients needed to run analysis
reports on email statistics, such as opened emails and bounce rates, the
reports were not completing. ActiveTrail needed a fast and easy solution to
accelerate its SQL Server database response time without disrupting its current
IT infrastructure.

ActiveTrail chose the K2 all
solid-state SAN storage system, which gives IT managers the freedom to choose
DRAM and/or flash media to support high I/O and latency-sensitive applications.
ActiveTrail moved its entire 1.5 terabyte SQL Server database onto the  K2 and saw amazing results. The email queries were running, on
average, 13 times faster on the Kaminario K2 than on the NAS devices. Reports
that typically ran 14 minutes on the NAS devices took the Kaminario K2 only one minute to complete – a 92 percent
improvement. With the K2, ActiveTrail can use only a single SQL
Server instance and still experience higher performance at a lower cost.

"Giving our
customers faster response times to their queries, greater intelligence and
better reporting tools makes it easier for us to stay ahead of our competitors,"
said Rafael Asor, CTO, ActiveTrail. "Moving
our SQL Server database to the Kaminario K2
all solid-state SAN storage gave us the ability to do all these things where
our existing storage infrastructure could not."

The K2 pushes the envelope of performance
storage by delivering a single storage array designed to
take advantage of the potential speed of SSD technology
while negating its limitations. Driven by Kaminario’s Scale-out
Performance Storage Architecture (SPEAR), the K2
provides the lowest latency in the industry and consistently delivers tens of
GBs of throughput and millions of IOPS- all without compromising on
reliability. In addition, the K2 gives users
the ability to choose a mix of SSD media for their application workload
and budget.

The improvement in its SQL Server database
response time on the K2 enables ActiveTrail to add more advanced
features to its services, such as smart analysis of user behaviors using
filtering and segmentation. These tasks were not possible on the NAS devices
because of high I/O and the resulting longer duration. Asor also cites the
early testing phase with Kaminario as being a "great experience."

"Enterprises like
ActiveTrail cannot compromise on performance or availability when it comes to
delivering mission critical applications such as email services to its
customers," said Dani Golan, CEO, Kaminario. "We are committed to helping businesses find
the most cost-effective and efficient way to accelerate their applications and
pass those benefits on to their customers."