Loughborough University Refreshes Storage Infrastructure With FlexPod

Logicalis Group Ltd has designed a storage infrastructure refresh for Loughborough University to meet the requirements of its specific applications and workloads.

Built using a FlexPod infrastructure stack from NetApp, Inc. and Cisco Systems, Inc., and adhering to Logicalis’ architectural approach, known as IT by Wire, the platform has been orientated to, and tested against, Loughborough’s service goals. Delivering performance and capacity that were lacking in Loughborough’s previous on-premise storage solution, the platform is guaranteed to meet the university’s changing needs for VM infrastructure and work-space data management.

The FlexPod deployment combines NetApp FAS storage, Cisco UCS technology and hypervisors in a powerful, integrated solution. The advantages of NetApp’s Data Fabric concept allow Loughborough University to manage its data, transport workloads within its IT environment as required, and leverage the right resources for a given workload.

“Loughborough has been very prudent; not only selecting best-in-class technology but also leveraging our expertise and high level accreditations with NetApp and Cisco to ensure a service-defined solution, delivering precisely what it requires both now and for the future,” said Richard Alexander, solutions director, Logicalis. “The result is a precise configuration that underpins a significant proportion of its business transformation strategy over the next five to six years. Specifically, continuing to run certain critical applications onsite to ensure complete control and appropriate service provision, while transitioning others to the cloud on an application by application basis.“

Logicalis’ various IT projects with Loughborough University since 2010 have attracted a string of independent industry awards. Having developed a hybrid cloud environment, core network, unified communications suite and extensive VDI rollout, this latest implementation replaces and extends Loughborough’s on-premise storage infrastructure – a critical component of its IT strategy and a key enabler for the delivery of on-demand learning resources and student services.

“Our IT needs change throughout the year, some more predictably than others, with greater numbers of applications becoming storage performance-critical. This new platform lets us be more confident in our agility, matching workloads against business demand and automating the delivery of tiered storage to optimise cost and processing speed,” said Matthew Cook, assistant director (infrastructure and operations), Loughborough University. “Our outlook is the same whether it’s academic achievement, sporting success or our digital environment – we’re an institution that always demands the highest performance. Once again we relied on Logicalis to raise the bar on an infrastructure solution architected to our service needs, and they have delivered it.“

“In choosing NetApp FlexPod technology at the root of its IT infrastructure, Loughborough University is fully equipped to instantly access and retrieve data as needed and manage the entire process efficiently, allowing the team to focus efforts on developing other areas of the institution to benefit its students,” said Elliot Howard, UK&I MD, NetApp.