The UK's foremost business-driven storage integrator

We see storage as on e of the key elements in designing, building, implementing and providing on-going support of your complete IT infrastructure. In the area of data storage, no one excels like Ardenta. Our company ethos focuses on excelling in technical expertise.

We Can Deliver The Benefits Of Using SAN (Storage Area Network)

As an effective way of centralising storage, the use of a Storage Area Network (SAN) approach is being adopted by more and more companies. But it's important to understand the approach, the benefits it can bring and the way to get the most from it. In the area of SAN, Ardenta offers experience, expertise and advice through a range of services.

In contrast with traditional approaches -- where storage is directly attached to the server (DAS) - SAN offers some important benefits to organisations.

There are many major advantages of SAN over DAS, among them:

• A lower total cost of ownership (TCO). This is because SAN allows a many-to-many relationship between server and storage.
• Better scalability. SCSI - the connection method used by DAS approaches - has inherent limitations, which SAN does not.
• High availability. Traditional DAS solutions are more prone to local failure.
• Better performance. The majority of modern SANs offer higher performance over DAS because they use fibre channel technology.
• Simpler and more effective management. Centralised management of SANs allows for easier deployment of storage.

Hardware

Ardenta offers this SAN hardware:

• Vendor HBAs - HP, IBM, Adaptec
• Switches - McData, Brocade, Cisco
• Storage Arrays - EMC, IBM, HP
• Virtualisation - IBM San Volume Controller

Services

Based on the knowledge of our team of professionals we also provide a range of SAN services to help you, including:

• SAN implementation. Ardenta can offer you a new SAN environment to meet your storage management requirements, whether or not you have an existing SAN.
• SAN management software. As an accredited EMC Velocity partner, we can provide you with world-class, industry-strength SAN management software: For example, VisualSRM to support multi-vendor SAN environments.
• DAS to SAN migration. Perhaps you'd like a faster SAN but you're unable to undertake the major exercise of migrating from your DAS solution to SAN? Ardenta has been there and done it, as our Londis Case study illustrates.
• SAN upgrades. Because SANs have been around for many years now, many 1Gb SANs exist. We understand the process and pitfalls, having successfully completed many upgrades to 2Gb SANs.
• SAN healthcheck. Do you have a multi-switch environment? Are you certain that you SAN is working to its best? We've gathered a wealth of expertise that will help you maximise the benefits of SAN.
• Specialised database tuning on SAN. We've also developed many years of experience with implementing and supporting database systems running on SAN technology. Among other things, we can offer solutions such as "Instant backup and recovery" using SAN technology. Our experience speaks for itself..

Whatever your needs, we'll maximise IT performance for your business, providing some of the finest technical experts in the industry to design, build, implement and support your complete IT infrastructure and optimise your enterprise information operations.

"Ardenta's professional advice and their guidance and knowledge in purchasing new hardware and storage has had an extremely positive impact on our operating environment.".

Stephen Glenton,
IT Manager
Cardinal Health