Purchasing Power Opts for Proximal Data Through Condre Storage

Proximal
Data, Inc., provider of server-side caching solutions
designed for virtualized environments, announced that Purchasing Power LLC, provider of purchase programs for employees, has selected Proximal Data’s
AutoCache software to improve application performance and report processing in
virtualized environments.

Purchasing Power was able to triple the VM density on its databases and reduce
run times for its SAS data analytics program and its monthly financial
reporting by 85%.  

Purchasing Power had been experiencing
issues with the processing time for its monthly reports, particularly a
financial report that took 36.5 hours to run. The report also required keeping
other virtual machines out of the system while it ran, since it consumed all
the host resources. The company needed a solution that would support its Linux
operating system without having to use agents, improve its application
performance and availability, and reduce latency, all without having to upgrade
its back-end NetApp SAN hardware.

"The
need to improve the report processing performance, as well as other issues, led
us to discussions about caching at the server level," said Brian
DaPrano, manager of systems and security at Purchasing Power. "AutoCache was the only product we found with
the features we needed and was the only solution that was both cost-effective
and transparent to our existing systems and application environments."

Purchasing Power chose AutoCache not only
for its compatibility with existing hardware and software but also for its
ability to be flash device-agnostic, working with PCIe cards and SSDs,
including Intel’s 910 400GB PCIe card in its existing test configuration.
AutoCache proved to be easy to implement and use while delivering significant
results almost immediately after Purchasing Power’s AutoCache evaluation began.

Utilizing AutoCache, Purchasing Power tripled the virtual machine density on
its databases and reduced the original run time by 85% for its SAS data
analytics program. Furthermore, the monthly financial report that took 36.5
hours to run now takes only 6.5 hours, even while running concurrent
operations, including backup, with multiple VMs on the same host. AutoCache
eliminated the need to move VMs when running the monthly financial report and
improved the performance of each VM in the process, all without any change to
Purchasing Power’s internal processes or procedures.

"AutoCache
performs with an amazing cache hit rate," said DaPrano. "Everything we tested with AutoCache has
benefited. We had a major software upgrade and, thanks to AutoCache, the time
to perform that upgrade was cut by eight hours. Without question, we would
recommend AutoCache to everyone. This product just works."

Implementing AutoCache took Purchasing
Power only hours, so in no time the company had deployed the
software in its environment and on a test server used for trying different
software.

Proximal Data’s channel partner Condre
Storage, Inc. provided the transactional logistics support and services necessary to
efficiently deliver the AutoCache software to Purchasing Power.

"By partnering with Proximal Data to
supply AutoCache to customers and resellers, we are offering a complete
solution that uniquely improves the efficiency of our customers’ data centers,"
said Dennis Maetzold, president at Condre Storage. "Customers get an enormous return on their investment as a result of
AutoCache’s ability to deliver greater VM performance with higher throughput
and lower latency."

Purchasing Power’s future plans for
AutoCache include deploying it to most of their virtual hosts in the next year
and deploying it in their test environment to resolve any issues there as well.