To thrive in a competitive industry, West Asset Management (WAM) needed to provide rapid data access to employees and create new IT environments quickly. Provisioning storage volumes was complex and laborious, impacting business agility. WAM implemented the IBM XIV Storage System for all mission-critical applications, rapidly and independently migrating all its data and, due to growing needs, increased capacity nondisruptively just three months later. Visit http://on.fb.me/LT4gdu to 'Like' the official Facebook page of IBM India Smarter Computing.

1. IBM XIV Storage System Financial services
Case Study
West Asset Management
collects on winning
agility with IBM XIV
Collections services leader taps storage ease and
300 percent performance gain for competitive
advantage
West Asset Management (WAM), a subsidiary of the West
Overview Corporation, is one of the top-rated companies in accounts receivable
management sector in the United States. It is the vendor of choice for
Challenge
the largest U.S. healthcare system, seven of the top 10 credit card
To thrive in a competitive industry, West
issuers, and other Fortune 500 companies. Headquartered in Marietta,
Asset Management (WAM) needed to
provide rapid data access to employees GA, the company has more than 2,500 employees at 14 locations
and create new IT environments quickly. across 13 states.
Provisioning storage volumes was
complex and laborious, impacting
business agility. WAM needs to be able to manage complex cases, such as medical
insurance claims investigations, and to process and respond to new
Solution collection requests as swiftly as possible. In the collections industry,
WAM implemented the IBM® XIV® requests go out to multiple fulfillers—the business is awarded to the
Storage System for all mission-critical
applications, rapidly and independently fastest responders. Quick turnaround time across its IT infrastructure,
migrating all its data and, due to grow- including its data warehouse, is critical to WAM’s success.
ing needs, increased capacity nondis-
ruptively just three months later.
“Speed is important operationally, to give business users access to the
Benefits data they need,” explains Jeff Ealy, Director of IT at WAM. “Speed is
● Raises performance 300 percent, with also important strategically: As we evolve, we need to be able to pro-
24/7 availability vide new IT services and respond rapidly to requests from business
● Provisions new storage within
users.”
30 minutes.
● Integrates with VMware for an
end-to-end solution Seeking speed and simplicity
Not surprisingly, performance was a primary driver for WAM in look-
ing for a new storage solution, and simplicity in use was close behind.
To enable high speed in IT service provisioning, the company had
already implemented a virtualized landscape based on VMware ESX
Server, running 200 virtual environments, to support its key systems.
Most were applications built around Microsoft® SQL Server and
Microsoft Windows® Server 2008: In-house-developed surveying, data
mining and validation applications for the insurance services sector,
and an Artiva accounts receivable management application from
Ontario Systems. WAM also runs a voice-recording application for
phone calls, a small number of Linux® and IBM AIX® systems, and an
IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager server that handles tape backups from
the company’s SAN.
“Although our VMware environment gave us virtualization on the
server side, there was a bottleneck when it came to the storage,”
explains DJ Toms, Vice President of Information Services. “Setting up

2. IBM XIV Storage System Financial services
Case Study
new storage volumes was a complex process, involving manual configu-
ration of RAID arrays and a lot of other technical work. Provisioning a
“Initially, we thought the single volume could take three or four hours, which slowed down our
claims IBM was making ability to respond to business users and distracted our IT staff from
more valuable work.”
about the XIV system
were too good to be Seeking new storage options, WAM consulted Sirius Computer
true—but then we saw Solutions (formerly MSI Systems Integrators). Says Ealy: “MSI has
been one of our closest partners for many years, and have always
it deliver a 300 percent helped us invest wisely in new technologies. Once again, they came
improvement in per- up with a great solution by suggesting we test out the IBM XIV
Storage System.”
formance. And when we
analyzed the business The IBM XIV Storage System revolutionizes enterprise storage tech-
case, we realized we nology; its highly parallelized grid architecture of high-capacity SATA
disks delivers tier-one performance and resilience at exceptionally low
would potentially total cost of ownership.
achieve cost savings
of 30 percent over 300 percent performance gain…and much
more
traditional SAN Sirius helped WAM run a proof of concept on a 45 TB XIV system at
infrastructures.” its main data center, in Omaha, Nebraska.
—DJ Toms, Vice President of Information “Initially, we thought the claims IBM was making about the XIV
Services, West Asset Management system were too good to be true—but then we saw it deliver a
300 percent improvement in performance,” says Toms. “And when we
analyzed the business case, we realized we would potentially achieve
cost savings of 30 percent over traditional SAN infrastructures.”
WAM put the test model straight into production, migrating 27 TB
of data from all environments of its existing storage in just 30 days,
without assistance. Today, the XIV system stores all the company’s
mission-critical applications.
“It was the easiest migration we’ve ever done,” says Ealy. “The XIV
migration tools are fantastic—the whole data transfer took place in the
background, with no need to take systems offline. The only downtime
was for a few minutes when we rebooted the servers. Our last SAN
migration was a nightmare, so we were astounded at how easy the XIV
made the process.”
Nondisruptive scalability
Just three months after the initial migration, the company added two
new modules. “XIV’s expandability is great: You can add capacity at low
cost, and nondisruptively,” says Toms. “Moreover, unlike a traditional
storage system, adding modules actually improves performance,
because you’re adding controllers as well as disks.”
2

3. IBM XIV Storage System Financial services
Case Study
West Asset Management has continued to add capacity easily as busi-
IBM solution components ness growth has required.
Hardware Ealy adds: “The XIV system is also extremely reliable and resilient.
● IBM® XIV® Storage System
We haven’t had a single moment’s downtime since the ‘go-live.’ Once,
Software when a disk failed, we just took the module out of service, replaced the
● IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager disk, and brought it back into the array again. The disk was rebuilt
automatically within 40 minutes. We monitored the I/O performance
Business Partner during the whole operation and had no effect on performance
● Sirius Computer Solutions
whatsoever.”
Toms comments: “The reporting tools are terrific; with our previous
“IBM XIV…delivers a storage product, we had to create tools for performance monitoring
ourselves, but the IBM XIV comes with everything you need as stan-
high-performance, dard. There are many advanced features available that we haven’t even
highly resilient storage started using yet, such as thin provisioning and remote mirroring.
infrastructure that not Snapshots are already proving useful for backups, and we’re looking
to introduce writeable snaps in the near future.”
only reduces total cost of
ownership, but also “But above all, it’s XIV’s ease in creating, allocating and extending stor-
age volumes that is the real ‘wow factor’ for us. A job that used to take
enhances business up to four hours of tedious manual work can now be completed in
agility...” 30 minutes—so we can respond to business users much more quickly
when they ask us to create a new environment.”
—Jeff Ealy, Director of IT, West Asset
Management
Compact and energy efficient
WAM retired its previous storage hardware, saving floor space and
reducing power and cooling requirements. “The old system took up
IT Environment: two or three racks; the XIV just occupies one,” says Ealy. “And you can
Operating systems
feel the difference in the data center—it pumps out much less hot air
● Microsoft® Windows® Server 2008
and puts less strain on the UPS. We’re planning to install a second
XIV system at our Atlanta site. Space and power are severely con-
Databases strained there, so the compact footprint and energy efficiency will be
● Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, DB2® a major advantage.”
Applications
Following the success of the project, WAM has recently purchased a
● Artiva
second XIV, which is installed at its San Antonio, TX, data center and
Virtualization used to support the operations of West Business Services (WBS)—a
● VMware ESX Server 4.0 highly agile sales force optimization company that needs to be able
to expand its IT environment rapidly to support new clients. WAM’s
parent company, West Corporation, has also decided to invest in an
XIV Storage System, which will support its Peoplesoft HRMS system.
The San Antonio XIV has greatly improved the reliability of a
dialer/IVR system, and has offered the business the ability to run
real-time reporting.
3

4. Ealy concludes: “We’re convinced that IBM XIV is the future of stor-
age at West Asset Management—it delivers a high-performance, highly
“…above all, it’s XIV’s ease in cre- resilient storage infrastructure that not only reduces total cost of own-
ating, allocating and extending ership, but also enhances business agility through the ability to respond
rapidly to changing business needs.”
storage volumes that is the real
‘wow factor’ for us. A job that For more information
used to take up to four hours of Contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner, or
visit us at: ibm.com/system/storage/disk/xiv
tedious manual work can now be
completed in 30 minutes.” For more information about Sirius Computer Solutions, visit:
siriuscom.com
—DJ Toms, Vice President of Information Services, West Asset
Management For more information about West Asset Management, visit:
westassetmanagement.com
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