| Case
Study:
Firm Validates Server Redeployment
Strategy with Anue Systems
Summary
Anue Systems enabled a leading provider
of IT services to test and validate the
relocation of a major aerospace client’s
mainframe server system, supporting thousands
of users worldwide.
Client Profile
The company is a leading global information
technology (IT) services provider. With
over 75,000 employees, they provide innovative
solutions for customers around the world
by applying leading technologies and their
own advanced capabilities. These include
systems design and integration; IT and
business process outsourcing; applications
software development; Web and application
hosting; and management consulting.
Project Initiative
The company won a contract to manage a
multi-national defense company’s
complete IT infrastructure, from desktops
to their mainframe server systems. In
order to deliver the benefits of its comprehensive
support and service infrastructure, the
company had to move the client’s
mainframe systems to their central service
center situated over 1500 kilometers away.
But before they could undertake a migration
it was critical to test the impact of
such a distance on mainframe applications.
Project Implementation
The team needed to validate that the impairments
associated with the added distance would
not affect the thousands of users accessing
the mainframe system. The company’s
approach was to use the emulator to replicate
the network with limited-bandwidth and
thus measure the “real user’s”
experience.
Using the Anue Gigabit
Ethernet Layer 2+ (GEL2) Network Emulator,
the team introduced delay into the production
environment between the users and the
mainframe, exactly emulating the setup
they wished to implement. They then laid
out a plan to ramp up multiple delay and
impairment scenarios over a period of
three months. Transmission latency times
of up to 80 ms were emulated. Other impairments
included bandwidth throttling down to
40 Mbps, reordering and corrupting of
Ethernet frames, and introducing packet
jitter. All of these tests were designed
to match impairments that could occur
on the production network.
This implementation
allowed all day-to-day user functional
requirements to be tested without having
to establish a formal test plan. At all
times the team had a backup plan that
would allow them to effortlessly remove
the delay or impairments should they detect
that the user experience would be compromised.
The first test showed
that some critical business applications
did not work with the delay that the emulated
distance introduced. The team was able
to detect the failure in real time and
dynamically eliminate the delay to circumvent
end-user problems. The team then focused
on optimizing these applications to operate
with the several millisecond delay associated
with the server being located 1500 kilometers
away. Once optimized, the team re-tested
the applications again using the Anue
Network Emulator.
Customer Value
By conducting these tests, the company
could truly define the impact of moving
their client’s mainframe. The benefit
was two-fold:
- They could test and understand all
the issues before a single machine was
actually relocated, and
- They were then able to construct
a migration plan that would mitigate
risk and above all, minimize customer
impact.
The company’s
overall benefit was being one hundred
percent proactive in meeting service level
agreements by being able to test their
proposed solution fully prior to implementation,
allowing their client to fully benefit
from their comprehensive infrastructure.
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PDF version of the case
study |
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