The City and County of San Francisco Deploys CommVault Simpana

At VMworld 2012 conference, the City and County of San Francisco
(CCSF)  discussed the agency’s selection of CommVault Systems, Inc.‘s Simpana software and
VMware server virtualization technology as part of its new ‘Cloud-First
Policy’ that now requires every application, networking, server and
storage system to be cloud-ready.

The CCSF is transforming the way it delivers
IT services to its constituents through the citywide adoption of
virtualization, which has increased its ability to scale its cloud
infrastructure and provide faster, more reliable services to meet business
needs. As a result, the CCSF has significantly decreased capital and
operational expenses to achieve nearly $2 million in cost avoidance and ensured
its cloud services can grow with the business.

Gina Tomlinson, CTO for the City and County of San Francisco,
detailed the agency’s journey to the cloud alongside CommVault COO, Al Bunte, in
a VMworld Super Spotlight session on August 28th.

The primary charter of the CCSF’s Department of Technology is to
consolidate data center, server and email systems across its approximately 60
agencies and close to 30,000 employees and to serve as a centralized IT
organization for the City and County. The CCSF uses CommVault to backup
approximately 100TB of data daily across ten agencies. The City and
County standardized on Simpana software because it’s a single platform,
hardware-agnostic approach to data management and its ability to protect
applications in physical, virtual or cloud environments.

The CCSF Benefits from a ‘Cloud-First’ Strategy
Based on
CommVault:

• Leveraging
  CommVault’s virtual server protection and cloud integration capabilities to integrate its VMware
  environment and move backup and archive data securely, reliably and
  transparently into, and out of, the cloud.
• Reduced disk
  requirements by nearly 60% for storage efficiency using 
  Simpana.
• The agency is in the
  midst of consolidating more than 20 data centers and server rooms
  into two locations.
• Implemented
  cloud technologies where applicable, including a virtualization strategy that
  is able to adapt to heterogeneous hardware and dynamic change.
• Created an
  ‘IT on demand’ service offering that addresses the ad-hoc IT
  business needs of its agencies and generates revenue by charging back hosted
  services.
• Is in the
  midst of consolidating seven disparate email systems, over 23,000 licensed
  email users, to a single Microsoft cloud email solution.
• Has
  reduced the time it spends on maintaining existing infrastructure and
  applications, as well as supporting users, and is more focused on
  value-added innovation for the agency.

"We implemented a cloud-first IT strategy as part of our effort
to address a multimillion-dollar, city-wide budget deficit, avoid staff
reductions and implement business-enabling IT solutions. Our cloud-first
strategy has allowed us to roll out a wide-ranging series of transformative
virtualization and cloud initiatives with CommVault Simpana software as the
foundation of our data management strategy," said Gina Tomlinson, CTO for the City and County of San Francisco. "These
successful initiatives have helped us expand our footprint in the cloud and
anticipate future demands to ensure our cloud services fulfill and grow with
the needs of our agencies and community."

"The City and County of San Francisco understood that modern
data management was an important link to the cloud and that the whole point of
their IT overhaul was to enable a strategic focus on software-based service
delivery," said Al Bunte, COO, CommVault.
"CommVault Simpana software helped the CCSF solve forward by creating a
scalable VMware protection solution across a heterogeneous cloud infrastructure
to help reduce costs and keep pace with operational dynamics and constant
change. Innovative people like Gina Tomlinson are focused on service levels and
outcomes and her IT vision has helped her dedicate more time on innovation that
adds value to the organization instead of maintaining infrastructure."