S U C C E S S S T O R Y

Kroll Ontrack
INDUSTRY Information Technology
SOLUTIONS Virtualisation, Enterprise Platform
Hardware Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (with previously installed
Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 2300 and 2500, and Hitachi NAS
Platform 3080, powered by BlueArc

)
Software Hitachi Device Manager, Hitachi Tuning Manager,
Hitachi Dynamic Tiering, Hitachi Dynamic Provisioning, Hitachi Tiered
Storage Manager
Services Solution design and deployment consultancy provided by
Hitachi Data Systems Global Solution Services
Migrating data seamlessly using
Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform
has enabled us to effciently handle
information for ourselves and, more
importantly, our customers.
Cory Cater
Technical Architect
Kroll Ontrack

S U C C E S S S T O R Y
Kroll Ontrack Virtualises for Greater Flexibility and
Performance with Hitachi Technology
Customers of Kroll Ontrack rely on its ability to manage and
analyse mission-critical data quickly and effectively. In order to
keep pace with demanding service level agreements (SLAs), the
organisation refreshed its modular storage environment to create a
cohesive virtual platform powered by Hitachi technology. Following
a smooth deployment, the storage footprint was consolidated by a
ratio of 4 to 1, making management and disaster recovery activities
easier and more efcient. Successes to date have laid the ground-
work for further storage innovation plans.
In March 2010, the organisation deployed
Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage (AMS)
2500 and Hitachi NAS Platform, powered by
BlueArc

, to support the growth of 2 of its

mission-critical applications: Ontrack Inview
and Control Centre. Later that year, Kroll
Ontrack implemented a Hitachi Adaptable
Modular Storage 2300 with Hitachi NAS
Platform to provide a platform for growth in
its Computer Forensics division.
A Careful Selection Process
The team knew a modular storage archi-
tecture would not support future growth. It
was important for us to incorporate storage
virtualisation into our new environment,
enabling us to consolidate our assets and
making it easier for us to manage and al-
locate resources on demand, said Cater.
Cater provided a number of solution pro-
viders with performance data for Microsoft
SQL Server and le server environments
at Kroll Ontrack, with a request to come
back with a recommended solution. The
most compelling proposal was found to be
that put forward by Hitachi Data Systems,
which offered cost-effectiveness as well as
a strong set of functionality that met the
objectives Kroll Ontrack initially set out.
We found by virtualising our entire envi-
ronment behind a Hitachi Virtual Storage
Platform (VSP), we could consolidate our
resources and provide a single pane of
glass for managing petabytes of informa-
tion, Cater explained. The new Hitachi
The legal technologies division of Kroll
Ontrack provides corporations, law rms and
government agencies with technology and
consulting services for large scale paper and
electronic discovery, computer forensics, and
litigation readiness and incident response
matters. Kroll Ontrack has built its strong
reputation on its expertise in all aspects of
data management, ranging from search
and recovery to analysis and reporting.
Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota,
Kroll Ontrack operates more than 30 ofces
in 20 countries around the world.
With data at the very heart of its customer
interactions, the companys business
success depends on its ability to handle
2
and protect its own and its customers
information assets. This makes its data
storage infrastructure a vital part of its IT
environment, and something that must
always operate at peak performance.
Our legacy storage hardware was aging
and it would soon become a challenge
to keep up with capacity requirements,
recalled Kroll Ontrack Technical Architect
Cory Cater. To ensure our maintenance
costs remained manageable and our ability
to service our customers paramount, it
was decided we needed a more exible,
scalable, cost-effective and reliable storage
platform, which had watertight disaster
recovery capabilities.
From the beginning of this project the team from Hitachi Data Systems
has given us a great deal of support. They have made us feel like part of
the family and are always there to provide advice. You cant put a price
tag on that.
Cory Cater
Technical Architect
Kroll Ontrack
S U C C E S S S T O R Y
VSP now supports all le and application
servers on a combination of VMware virtual
machines and physical servers.
The dynamic tiering functionality offered
by the Hitachi VSP was a feature we knew
would suit our SQL environment, com-
mented Cater, speaking further about why
the team opted for the Hitachi Data Systems
solution. Monitoring capacity usage across
the whole storage environment allowed us to
tier data more effectively.
A Well-planned Deployment
Having chosen the new hardware, Kroll
Ontrack asked consultants from Hitachi
Data Systems Global Solution Services
(GSS) to assist with the design and deploy-
ment of the new infrastructure. A team from
GSS had been involved in the creation of
the initial proposal; they built on their exist-
ing knowledge to design a conguration
before coming onsite to carry out the script-
ing and tailoring necessary to optimise VSP
performance at Kroll Ontrack.
The in-depth involvement of Hitachi Data
Systems GSS representatives from the
outset meant that they had a great feeling
for the complexity of our environment
and really understood our challenges and
requirements, recalled Cater. Their exper-
tise made the migration process seamless;
they offered exible support, which, all
importantly, minimised downtime for our
clients. Indeed, any activities that had
a possibility of impacting the companys
ability to meet customer SLAs were carried
out overnight or over weekends to avoid
interference with its business obligations.
Migration of the whole storage environ-
ment to the virtual infrastructure fronted by
the Hitachi VSP was completed in just 2
months, and with no customer-impacting
issues at all, said Cater.
Immediate Benefits
With deployment complete, Kroll Ontrack
is already seeing a number of benets from
its new virtualised storage infrastructure:
We can now manage the whole archi-
tecture centrally, using Hitachi Command
Suite software. This enables us to gain
full control of our storage resources,
said Cater. Pressure on the IT team is
removed, as much of the manual burden
has now been lifted through increased
automation and centralisation. Allocation
and migration of data across storage tiers
used to take days, but the task can now
be completed automatically, in a mat-
ter of hours. Migrating data seamlessly
using Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform has
enabled us to efciently handle information
for ourselves and, more importantly, our
customers, Cater added.
Time savings were generated for the IT
team, aided by Hitachi Data Systems GSS
taking on the workload associated with
conguring and installing the new platform,
3
complementing savings in other areas. The
new virtual platform enabled Kroll Ontrack
to reduce its 12 storage racks to just 3
Hitachi VSP racks. This smaller footprint in
the data centre means the team can ex-
pect to see power and cooling reductions
too, which will translate into cost savings.
From the beginning of this project the
team from Hitachi Data Systems has given
us a great deal of support. They have
made us feel like part of the family and are
always there to provide advice. You cant
put a price tag on that.
There has been one nal, unexpected
bonus for Kroll Ontrack, which Cater and
his colleagues are planning to make use
of. Cater concluded: Through our work
with HDS, we have come into contact with
much of its partner ecosystem; this has
given us valuable contacts with a number
of experts, who we look forward to work-
ing with as we move forward.
S U C C E S S S T O R Y
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Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2012. All Rights Reserved. SS-317-A DG April 2012