1-Stop Connections achieves virtualized storage and server consolidation resulting in improved performance by 400 percent

Benefits

•   Increase of 400 percent in server performance delivers higher quality service to customers

•   Improves stability of IT infrastructure and increases storage capacity by  100 percent

•   Experiences a faster return  on investment 

•   Reduces power consumption by  more than 50 percent and lowers carbon footprint

•  Blades•  Green efficiency•  Virtualization 

“ We have received emails from several of our customers thanking us for improving our Vehicle Booking System. Because of our upgrade, we can ensure that our customers are provided with the highest quality of IT services available in Australia today.” James Skurray, general manager, IT & operations, 1-Stop Connections

Customer profile

Company: 1-Stop Connections Pty Ltd

Industry: Australia

Country: Logistics

Employees: 45

Website: www.1-stop.biz

Business need1-Stop Connections needed to upgrade IT infrastructure with a standardized, stable, scalable and energy efficient solution to improve service availability to its customers.

SolutionThe company deployed Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers and Dell EqualLogic SAN with Citrix® XenServer™ server virtualization software running Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® Premium operating system.

1-Stop was founded to propel its customers in the different sectors of the freight and logistics community such as ports, terminals, shipping lines, freight forwarders, importers and exporters, road carriers and rail operators into an era of automated and paperless processes.

Customers rely on 1-Stop to facilitate their critical business transactions making it crucial for the company to have a highly available and stable IT infrastructure in place. 1-Stop provides services such as a vehicle booking system (VBS) which is an online slot booking tool used by terminals and carriers to organize receiving and delivery of shipping containers, and 1-Stop gateway, which provides online access to real time vessel schedules and information.

Achieving employee satisfaction by standardizing the IT environment

Previously the IT function at 1-Stop was entirely outsourced and five different vendors provided the company with hardware, software and application development expertise. With the goal of bringing all IT functions in-house and to control and manage the infrastructure internally, 1-Stop embarked on a project to upgrade all hardware and software and reduce complexity by working with a single vendor.

After considering a number of alternatives, 1-Stop chose to work with Dell. The re-engineered IT environment at 1-Stop is a robust combination of Dell PowerEdge M610 and R610 servers built on Dell EqualLogic PS6000S SANs with Citrix XenServer virtualization

software running Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system.

James Skurray, general manager, IT & operations, 1-Stop Connections, comments, “Our employees find the upgraded system easy to administer and maintain. They appreciate the simplicity of the infrastructure and no longer require the training sessions needed previously to maintain our system.”

1-Stop Connections Pty Ltd (1-Stop) is an information

communications technology (ICT) company providing

specialist services to supply chain participants in the

import and export of goods to and from Australian

ports since 2002.

“ Power utilized in our data center has reduced from 8,600 watts to 3,700 watts, which is a reduction of over 50 percent compared to our previous system.” James Skurray, general manager, IT & operations, 1-Stop Connections Technology at work

Services

Dell™ Support Services– Dell ProSupport Mission Critical

4-hour onsite service

Hardware

Dell EqualLogic PS6000S storage area network (SAN)

Dell PowerEdge™ M610 blade servers with Intel® Xeon® Processors

Dell PowerEdge R610 servers with Intel® Xeon® Processors

Dell PowerEdge M1000e modular blade enclosure

Dell PowerVault™ TL4000 tape library

Dell PowerConnect™ 8024F switches

Software

Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® Premium

Citrix® XenServer™ server software

Proof of concept reinforces confidence in solution upgrade

1-Stop wanted to ensure that upgrading their storage solution from a fibre channel fabric to iSCSI technology would result in improved performance and support the company’s growth objectives for the next three years. Dell provided 1-Stop with a proof of concept. “We achieved three times the performance from Dell EqualLogic SAN and Dell PowerEdge servers, which was four times faster than our previous solution,” confirms Skurray. “We were confident in the solution Dell proposed and the proof of concept reinforced our decision to work with Dell in upgrading our IT infrastructure,” he states.

Higher quality service delivery  to customers by increasing system availability and stability

Customers access the Vehicle Booking System (VBS) through 1-Stop’s web portal. The VBS experiences high traffic, amounting to almost 7 million hits and 200,000 bookings per month. In the past, 1-Stop received comments from its customers stating that they were unable to book slots due to the performance of the VBS.

1-Stop has increased storage capacity on the Dell EqualLogic PS 6000 SANs by 100 percent, which are able to support all of the company’s data without impacting on performance. Server performance has increased by 400 percent through virtualization and 1-Stop currently runs 55 virtual machines on the Dell PowerEdge M610 and R610 servers.

1-Stop’s web portal cannot afford outages as this would result in loss of revenues for the individual carriers and the terminals, with a flow on effect

to the logistics industry throughout Australia. 1-Stop relies heavily on complete replication of all their databases and virtual servers to its disaster recovery (DR) center. “In the event of a disaster recovery situation 1-Stop can run at full capacity on the DR site without loss of data, which is crucial not only for the company but for the entire freight and logistics community’s efficient functioning in Australia,” explains Skurray.

This translates into improved service availability and increased uptime of the system, clearly visible to customers as making bookings through the VBS has become faster and easier. “We have received emails from several of our customers thanking us for improving our Vehicle Booking System. Because of our upgrade, we can ensure that our customers are provided with the highest quality of IT services available in Australia today,” comments Skurray.

Realizing a faster return on investment across the business

A key strategic driver of 1-Stop is to provide valuable returns to their shareholders by optimizing revenue and achieving the most cost effective structure. When 1-Stop chose to upgrade their IT infrastructure, the management projected a savings of A$500,000 (U.S.$535,200) in maintenance of hardware, software and staffing over a period of three years. However, two years into deploying the solution proposed by Dell, management have already realised the projected savings.

“We compared the cost of maintaining our existing infrastructure for three years with upgrading and maintaining our simplified and standardized Dell

“ We compared the cost of maintaining our existing infrastructure for three years with upgrading and maintaining our simplified and standardized Dell infrastructure over the same period of time and a much higher return on our investment was clearly visible to us.” James Skurray, general manager, IT & operations, 1-Stop Connections

infrastructure over the same period of time and a much higher return on our investment was clearly visible to us,” states Skurray.

Energy efficient solution reduces power consumption by more  than 50 percent

The previous rack servers in 1-Stop’s data centers consumed significant power. By installing Dell PowerEdge R610 and M610 servers, 1-Stop has reduced power consumption by more than 50 percent, and reduced its carbon footprint. “Power utilized in our data center has reduced from 8,600 watts to 3,700 watts, which is a reduction of over 50 percent compared to our previous system. Furthermore, we have significantly lowered our carbon footprint, which is part of our vision to deliver value to our community,” confirms Skurray.

Rapidly scalable solution supports future growth 

The improved efficiencies offered by the upgrade mean that 1-Stop can introduce additional services to their portfolio such as the DP world

customer portal. With its virtualized infrastructure, 1-Stop can scale on demand and add more web services and applications quickly and cost effectively. “In the past, each additional project would require at least A$40,000 (U.S.$42,816) worth of investment in infrastructure, but with our virtual machines, we can launch new projects immediately on our existing infrastructure at no extra cost,” remarks Skurray.

1-Stop Connections has become a pivotal player in the freight and logistics industry of Australia providing its customers with a service that is second to none in the industry today. “I can confidently say that the results of working with Dell on re-engineering our IT environment are already exceeding our expectations in performance and reliability,” concludes Skurray.

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