Pechanga Resort & Casino Opts for Isilon

EMC Corporation announced that
Pechanga Resort & Casino, the largest California casino, owned by the
Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, deployed EMC Isilon
scale-out NAS as the primary storage repository for the enormous amount of
video footage captured by casino-floor video surveillance cameras.

Using a cluster of 50 Isilon X200 Platform Nodes running Isilon’s SmartLock,
SmartQuotas, SmartConnect and InsightIQ software applications, in combination
with VMware server virtualization and EMC backup and recovery solutions, the
Pechanga Resort & Casino transformed its existing IT infrastructure into an
efficient, flexible, and scalable
data center.

Customer Benefits:

• IT Transformation: Pechanga Resort & Casino completely
  transformed its data center by virtualizing its servers with VMware, and
  deploying next-generation storage and Data Domain from EMC.
• Unified surveillance operations: Isilon enabled the casino to consolidate its coverage and recording products into one
  entity, easing management and providing a streamlined solution.
• Improved Scalability: With Isilon, it can scale its storage infrastructure as needed for
  growing data requirements.
• Streamlined Management: With Isilon and Data Domain,
  Pechanga streamlined management and simplified its scalable video storage,
  regulatory compliance and backup of surveillance video.

Customer Challenges and
Solution:
The Temecula, California-based Pechanga Resort & Casino features
a 200,000 square-foot gaming floor with over 3,000 slot machines. Before
deploying Isilon scale-out NAS, Pechanga Resort & Casino had a
proprietary surveillance system, attached to casino cameras within the
surveillance department. The new integrated infrastructure, part of a complete
data center transformation, enabled the Surveillance Department to reduce its
data center footprint by 80 percent and cut energy and hardware costs.

Also owned by the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, Pechanga
Technology Solutions Group (PTSG) served as the consulting IT solutions
provider for the Resort & Casino. PTSG’s experts in data center and
advanced network design for the gaming and hospitality industry assessed
Pechanga Resort & Casino’s video surveillance system and data center
infrastructure with an eye toward managing big data in an
efficient, cost-effective, scalable
way.

In the new data center, digital footage captured by the video
surveillance cameras is encoded and then transmitted over a 10GbE Cisco IP
network. A video management system hosted on VMware virtualized servers with
Cisco UCS writes encoded footage to the cluster of Isilon X200 nodes, a scale-out solution for changing
virtual environments, guaranteeing storage capacity where it is needed. The
completed storage infrastructure delivers 1.4PB of usable storage. When an
incident happens at the casino, the footage is pulled from the X200 Nodes,
moved to WORM-compliant storage and is automatically backed up on an Data
Domain DD860 deduplication storage system, providing fast and reliable backup
and recovery.

Anthony Borges, director of surveillance, Pechanga Gaming Commission,
said: "In our industry, because of
the enormous amount of digital surveillance footage, updating a data center is
a major undertaking. EMC Isilon enabled us to transform our operations,
creating an integrated and end-to-end solution, with best-of-breed
virtualization, scale-out NAS, and backup products."

"Our primary purpose is
to protect Tribal assets and ensure the safety and protection of our guests and
employees. For the first time, our coverage and recording products will work
together as one entity. This is an exciting and new era for our operations and
the industry overall."

John Kenefick, VP of IT, Pechanga Resort & Casino, said: "For us, ensuring gaming at the Pechanga
Resort & Casino is conducted honestly, competitively, and free of criminal
and corruptive elements is paramount. We have video surveillance cameras
deployed all around the gaming floor and casino property, producing hundreds of
hours of video daily, making storing and managing the footage a real IT
challenge."

Michael Grimsley, director of systems, Pechanga Technology Solutions
Group, said: "It was clear that in
order to stay ahead of business growth demands, the Surveillance Department
needed to change the existing infrastructure. We recommended a data center
overhaul with EMC Isilon scale-out NAS alongside VMware server virtualization,
and EMC Data Domain and Networker as the backup solution. These technologies,
alongside a new Cisco Nexus network infrastructure, proactively address camera
and data growth, streamline management, and allow for simple and scalable video
storage, regulatory compliance, and backup of surveillance video."

Sam Grocott, VP of marketing, EMC Isilon, said: "Pechanga Resort & Casino is pioneering new best practices for the gaming industry. Their data center transformation represents a significant move away from the proprietary, expensive video surveillance systems widely used today. This new way of managing digital footage makes sense not just for other casinos, but for many other types of organizations that create and manage big data."