Broadcom > Case Studies > SUCCESS STORY Rackspace

SUCCESS STORY Rackspace

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

Brocade DCX 8510 Backbones
Brocade Fabric Vision
Brocade vRouter

Tech Stack

Fibre Channel technology
Gen 5 Fibre Channel technology

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Cost Savings
Customer Satisfaction
Productivity Improvements

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Storage Services

Applicable Industries

Telecommunications

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing
Logistics & Transportation

Use Cases

Fleet Management
Predictive Maintenance
Real-Time Location System (RTLS)

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
System Integration

About The Customer

Rackspace is the leading managed-cloud company and the founder of OpenStack, the open-source operating system for the cloud. The company, headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, serves more than 300,000 business customers from data centers on four continents and is known globally for its Fanatical Support®. Rackspace’s philosophy is that one size does not fit all, and it gives each customer the best fit for its unique needs. As a result, the company owns and manages some of the world’s highest-demand and most intensive data center and SAN environments. Rackspace data centers must handle high data volumes with high performance and zero downtime—as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. Rackspace relies on Brocade® Fibre Channel technology as the core of its storage connectivity solutions.

The Challenge

Rackspace, a leading managed-cloud company, was facing the challenge of upgrading its SAN infrastructure to better utilize physical facilities, keep pace with growing customer demand, and minimize data center and management complexity. The company's data centers had to handle high data volumes with high performance and zero downtime, as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. However, the existing architecture required servers and storage to be located in the same area of a data center, leading to unbalanced growth and islands of unused storage and SAN ports. Rackspace wanted to simplify the architecture so that switches, hosts, or storage platforms could be plugged in anywhere, regardless of their physical locations. At the same time, this new architecture had to be able to scale virtual workloads quickly.

The Solution

Rackspace deployed Brocade DCX 8510 Backbones with Gen 5 Fibre Channel technology across its global data center network. The Brocade DCX 8510 Backbone is designed to enable a simplified, scale-out network design. With Brocade UltraScale chassis connectivity, 32 64-Gbps optical Fibre Channel cables provide up to 2.1 Tbps connectivity between each Brocade 8510 Backbone director. Rackspace connects multiple Brocade DCX 8510 Backbones using optical Inter-Chassis Links (ICLs) over distances up to 100 meters. The use of ICLs offers a flatter, faster, and simpler fabric. UltraScale ICLs enable scalable core-edge and active-active mesh chassis topologies that reduce inter-switch cabling by 75 percent. At the same time, UltraScale ICLs free up to 33 percent of ports for server and storage by eliminating the need for Inter-Switch Links (ISLs). UltraScale ICLs help maximize port utilization and greatly simplify deployment, fulfilling Rackspace’s need for “plug-anywhere” capabilities. Now Rackspace has exceptionally fast and reliable connectivity between each switch, while maximizing port density in the lowest amount of rack space possible.

Operational Impact

Dramatically simplified SAN architecture while optimizing density and utilization.
Managed services more efficiently and cost-effectively with Brocade Fabric Vision technology.
Gained visibility to prevent potentially service-affecting outages.
Significantly improved power efficiency and reduced data center footprint.
Migrated to Gen 5 Fibre Channel technology without disruption.

Quantitative Benefit

Boosted its connectivity capacity by a factor of three.
The Brocade DCX 8510 consumes 70 percent less power compared to similar solutions.
In the last migration, power consumption dropped by more than 50 percent.