Recognizing that its clients were getting bogged down by ever-growing data volumes, Federal Hill Solutions wanted to offer a flexible cloud storage service to relieve the pressure. With Lenovo Storage DX8200C appliances, powered by Cloudian and configured with Intel® Xeon® processors, the company can deliver on-premises Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) compliant cloud storage – providing customers with both the scalability and security they need to keep operations running smoothly.
2. 2
Computer Services
Solution components
Hardware
• Lenovo Storage DX8200C
with Intel®
Xeon®
E5
processor family
• Lenovo RackSwitch G8272
Software
• Cloudian HyperStore
• Lenovo XClarity Pro
Federal Hill Solutions
Helping clients take back control over skyrocketing data volumes
Customer success summary
Recognizing that its clients were getting bogged down by ever-
growing data volumes, Federal Hill Solutions wanted to offer a
flexible cloud storage service to relieve the pressure. With Lenovo
Storage DX8200C appliances, powered by Cloudian and configured
with Intel®
Xeon®
processors, the company can deliver on-premises
Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) compliant cloud storage –
providing customers with both the scalability and security they need
to keep operations running smoothly.
“With the Lenovo Storage
DX8200C solution, we can
offer extremely flexible data
storage services that
deliver all the benefits of
public cloud storage from
our own data center.”
— Arthur Olshansky, CTO, Federal
Hill Solutions
Case Study
3. 3
CASE STUDY
Deluge of data
So, what is the biggest challenge facing both FHS and its clients today? The answer is data growth.
Or, more specifically, how to manage data growth effectively.
Arthur Olshansky, CTO of Federal Hill Solutions, takes up the story: “The fast-paced digitization of
business in recent years means data levels are growing at an unprecedented rate. Organizations
across all industries – from healthcare to finance and retail to manufacturing – have found that their
existing data storage solutions can’t keep up with this huge surge.”
Unable to cope with ever-increasing volumes of data, many companies turn to FHS for support.
“Many of our clients expressed interest in using the cloud to store their data,” says Arthur Olshansky.
“They want the convenience and scalability that public cloud storage services offer, but – due to the
sensitive nature of a lot of company data – need the security and control of an on-premises solution.
The challenge for us was to find the right infrastructure to support this kind of flexible, secure hybrid
cloud storage service.”
Teaming up with Lenovo and Cloudian
To meet client demand for scalable storage services, FHS selected the Lenovo Storage DX8200C
appliances, powered by Cloudian.
Arthur Olshansky recalls: “Having worked with Lenovo before, we knew that they would help us make
the most of the new hybrid cloud storage technology. We went out to the Lenovo briefing center in
Raleigh, NC, to get a closer look at the new Lenovo Storage DX8200C appliance, and came back full
of enthusiasm for the solution. We were really impressed with Lenovo’s vision and appreciated how
they took our specific requirements into account when discussing the solution.”
Working closely with Lenovo and Cloudian, FHS deployed three Lenovo Storage DX8200C appliances
in its primary data center. “The implementation went very smoothly,” notes Arthur Olshansky. “With
help from the Lenovo engineers and Cloudian team, we were operational in a matter of days.”
Pre-loaded with Cloudian HyperStore software, the Lenovo Storage DX8200C appliances enable FHS
to deliver on-premises Amazon S3-compliant cloud storage – providing scalable, secure and cost-
effective data storage. Storage capacity is pooled across nodes, while the hybrid cloud “burst out”
nature of the solution allows easy scalability.
By using the Lenovo XClarity Pro management tool, FHS can monitor and manage its physical storage
infrastructure via a single pane of glass. “Lenovo XClarity is very user-friendly and makes data center
management fast and simple,” says Arthur Olshansky.
Computer Services
Background
Federal Hill Solutions (FHS)
delivers innovative IT services
and solutions designed to drive
success and empower any
business, of any size, anywhere
to achieve its goals.
Headquartered in Baltimore,
MD, the company offers
everything from managed IT
services to cloud computing
and colocation services.