GRAMEENPHONE : For Your Storage Needs

Grameenphone is Bangladesh's leading GSM operator with over 10 mn

subscribers. Nearly four years ago, Grameenphone replaced the storage

environment supporting its business-critical billing systems with two EMC

Symmetrix DMX 1000 and 2000 model storage systems to accommodate rising

performance demands and non-stop growth. Today, the company is one of EMC's

largest customers in Bangladesh.

“At Grameenphone, we look at technology as a strategic tool to ensure

cost-effective business opera­tions and provide better value to subscribers,”

says Frode Stoldal, CIO, Grameenphone. “EMC provided a scalable storage solution

that gives us the assurance that our information is protected and available at

all times.”

In 2007, Grameenphone opted to take advantage of EMC OpenScale purchasing

options through EMC Global Financial Services to cost-efficiently accommodate

rising storage demands. Based on the “pay as you use” principle, OpenScale

eliminates the traditional pitfalls associated with purchasing and allocating

storage by providing the company with a pre-determined price per gigabyte that

is fully transparent throughout the term of the contract. This program has

enabled Grameenphone to quickly meet storage needs for faster rollout of new

products, applications, and services.

A recent technology refresh of the company's EMC Symmetrix DMX 1000 storage

system was also made possible through EMC Global Financing Services' OpenScale

options. As a result, the company's billing environment now leverages a new EMC

Symmetrix DMX-3 platform, which supports significantly greater levels of

performance, availability, and scalability. The existing EMC Symmetrix DMX 2000

system has been redeployed to support the company's data warehousing

requirements.

A Wider Adoption



Based on the success of its initial EMC deployments, Grameenphone has

expanded its centralized storage infrastructure over the last four years,

acquiring new tier-1 and tier-2 EMC storage systems; powerful, highly reliable

EMC Connectrix directors and switches; and a host of advanced EMC software

solutions to facilitate improved applications support, automated backup and

archive processes, and rock-solid disaster recovery capabilities.

An EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 storage system, now deployed at the company's disaster

recovery site, is connected to EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 and DMX-2000 systems at the

production site via dedicated dark fiber links. EMC Symmetrix Remote Data

Facility/Synchronous (SRDF/S) software is used to facilitate synchronous

replication between these two sites for zero-data-loss capabilities.

Consistent and streamlined backup is supported by EMC TimeFinder/Clone

software, which creates pointer-based snaps of the company's Symmetrix DMX

volumes, and EMC NetWorker software, which centralizes and automates backup to a

tape library. Coordinating and automating the entire replication process is EMC

Replication Manager.

A mid-range EMC CLARiiON CX3-80 storage system is currently in place to

support both a 5,000-seat Microsoft Exchange environment and file server data.

EMC EmailXtender is used within the exchange environment to facilitate

streamlined email archiving capabilities. Archives are stored on economical SATA

drives within the EMC CLARiiON CX3-80 system.

Recently, another EMC CLARiiON CX3-80 system was purchased so that the

company could segregate file server data from exchange data in the first array.

Two additional EMC CLARiiON CX3-20 systems, each located at the main data

center and in Bharti, provide mid-tier support for applications used by

Grameenphone's technical department. EMC SnapView software, which produces snaps

for backup and recovery purposes, EMC Mirror View, which facilitates synchronous

mirroring between the two sites, and EMC SAN Copy software, which supports

high-speed data mobility between EMC CLARiiON and the company's non-EMC storage

sys­tems, provide a comprehensive multi-faceted data protection solution for

this environment.

Jatinder Singh



jatinders@cybermedia.co.in