When the pace of business demands made it clear to BC Ferry Services in Victoria British Columbia that outsourcing the management of its Oracle and Sybase database applications for reservations, scheduling, human resources (and the servers running them) was no longer a feasible solution, the company turned to Sun for IT infrastructure that would meet its needs and deliver savings and flexibility not available in their former operational environment.

BC Ferry Services transports some 21 million passengers and 8.5 million vehicles annually aboard its 37 vessels. With some 4,500 employees, the company's need for reliable IT support became clear as, in the words of Mike Chanin, Director of Business Support Services for IT at the company noted, "We were falling behind in meeting our business needs, and we were negotiating new terms for the existing IT outsourced services model," which, it was apparent, was no longer adequate.

The company's first step was to build a new offsite datacenter that would enable the optimization of that facility's footprint since both power and AC requirements were maxed out in the old datacenter. BC Ferry Services also wished to migrate from its several legacy operating systems and various hardware to a standardized IT architecture and operating system. The need for virtualization became clear from the outset, given the parameters of the migration.

The solution BC Ferries chose is a Sun virtualization solution that includes Sun SPARC Enterprise servers, a Sun StorageTek storage system and tape library, and the Solaris 10 Operating System, all of which they were helped to implement by Sun Services.

The implementation included the following Sun solutions:

• Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 Server
• Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 Server
• Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server
• Sun StorageTek 9985V system
• Sun StorageTek L1400 Tape Library
• Sun StorageTek T10000B Tape Drive
• Solaris 10 Operating System
• Sun Enterprise Installation Services
• Sun StorageTek Implementation Services
• Sun Service Plans

The benefits to BC Ferry Services of this implementation include:

• Reduced number of servers by 40%
• Implemented in tight six-month timeframe
• Increased system reliability and scalability
• Reduced the total number of servers through the implementation of virtualization technology
• Reduced power, cooling and space requirements for the existing computing capacity while allowing for accommodation of increased computing and storage capacity
• Reduced carbon emissions
• Cut operating costs (total cost of ownership)

Summing up the company's relationship with Sun, Executive Director and CIO of BC Ferries Derek Osman said, "We needed a partner that could assist us in switching smoothly from outsourced IT services to internally-managed services. We also wanted to add capacity and have high performance, within a defined budget. Sun got us there—they definitely went the extra mile to establish and strengthen a new business relationship.”

More Information

Sun SPARC Enterprise M4000 Server

Sun SPARC Enterprise M5000 Server

Sun SPARC Enterprise T5120 server

Sun StorageTek 9985V System

Sun StorageTek L1400 Tape Library

Sun StorageTek T10000B Tape Drive

Sun Enterprise Installation Services

Sun StorageTek Implementation Services [...read more...]

		fullsource
Print Email Current Profile Archive Blog Generate newsletter