Case Study: Data Center Transformation Provides Streamlined Operations for Police Department

The Challenge

What were once cutting-edge technologies can quickly become antiquated systems that can’t keep up with the rapid pace of change. A large Texas police department was living that exact scenario. They were long overdue to upgrade their 10-year-old data center, which was struggling more and more each day to keep up with the department’s ever-increasing demands. They needed more than an upgrade to their data center. They needed Netsync.

Prior to meeting Netsync, the police department had experienced several poor engagements working with other providers, which made them gun shy about implementing the much-needed project. However, a single meeting with Netsync’s professionals left them convinced they would soon select the leader in the implementation of comprehensive IT lifecycle solutions for a wide array of organizations. They knew that Netsync’s level of professionalism, technical acumen and empirical experience meant their long overdue project would not only be in good hands, but in the perfect hands.

A single meeting with Netsync’s professionals left them convinced they would soon select the leader in the implementation of comprehensive IT lifecycle solutions for a wide array of organizations.

Netsync’s engineering professionals, the most tenured and talented in the industry, conducted interviews with key stakeholders and a thorough audit of the department’s existing environment and architecture. From that, they crafted a solution that would turn their data center into a transformational engine that would not only support their current needs but accommodate them well into the future. They needed scalability, flexibility, and simpler management. They got it.

Netsync Deploys a Solution With Technology from Trusted Partner Cisco

Netsync knew that Cisco, its longtime, valued partner, had the perfect hardware to deliver the solution, which, when completed, not only consolidated 10 racks into two but virtualized their entire environment.

Netsync deployed a Cisco UCS HX node, which unifies their compute, storage, and networking from the core to the edge. Cisco’s HyperFlex HX-Series Data Platform is a high-performance, distributed file system that supports multiple hypervisors with a wide range of enterprise-grade data management and optimization services. Netsync installed, configured, and test the latest version of VMware ESXi on the newly provisioned Cisco UCS HX nodes, and installed and configured the latest version of VMware vCenter, which is advanced server management software that provides a centralized platform for controlling VMware environments.

To handle the department’s growing storage needs, Netsync deployed Cisco’s UCS S3260 Storage Server, which is a modular, dual node x86 server designed for investment protection. Its architectural flexibility provides high performance and high capacity for data intensive workloads.

In addition, Netsync installed 2 Cisco UCS FIs (Fabric Interconnects) from Cisco’s UCS next-generation data center platform. It unites computing, networking, storage access, and virtualization resources into a cohesive system designed to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and increase agility. Combined with Cisco UCS Manager, the department can now easily deploy storage capacity from Terabytes to Petabytes within minutes.

Disaster Recovery Rounded Out the Solution With Much-Needed Security

Netsync deploys all customer solutions with security top-of-mind. They upgraded the client’s Cisco Call Manager using Singlewire, which is IP-based software for emergency communications with mass notification. To further enhance their emergency paging system, Netsync added Cisco Emergency Responder to bring the department up to, and remain in, compliance. In addition, Netsync deployed Cisco DRaaS (Disaster Recovery as a Service), which now allows them to protect their on-premises IT environment without having to operate their own disaster recovery site.

Allowing the Police Department to Focus on Their Goals, Roles, and Responsibilities

The police department’s once siloed data center is now engineered to easily deploy and manage mission-critical applications, and their storage footprint, read/write latency, and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) have been greatly reduced.

Now, the police department can focus on protecting the public, not maintaining and managing an antiquated, inefficient data center.