U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Recent Win

Background

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is responsible for investigating, developing and maintaining the nation's water and related environmental resources. To support this charter a healthy, reliable, IT infrastructure is required. Unfortunately, USACE maintained a challenging, legacy, compute environment. This environment was costly to maintain - both OEM support and staffing costs were exorbitant. This made service delivery very difficult and ultimately led to a sub-optimal end-user experience.

Challenge

USACE realized a change was required. With the help of Lockheed Martin (LM) and ThunderCat Technology (TC), USACE plotted a path forward. After a careful analysis USACE determined a virtualized service delivery platform best meets their needs. The goal: reduce acquisition costs with virtualized servers and storage and minimize ongoing spend. Ultimately this will allow for an optimized, more repeatable, end-user experience.

Approach

A project of this magnitude requires a strong, cohesive, team. LM and TC partnered with best of breed manufacturers, VMware, NetApp, Cisco and Dell, to architect a world-class service delivery platform. District Office IT services will be delivered from a pool of virtualized Dell servers connected to NetApp FAS storage via Cisco Nexus switches. These ‘platforms’ will be delivered to over 50 USACE field sites across the country. LM service teams will deploy and convert existing physical systems to virtual machines. NetApp’s SnapManager for Virtual Infrastructure (SMVI) will back up the virtual servers. SMVI’s snapshots will be transmitted via SnapVault to a central processing center. There a catalog of recovery points will be maintained for quick, reliable recoveries if needed.

Results

Pilots are ongoing but initial results are impressive. Platform deployment has been reasonable and services are steady and reliable. Overall performance has improved and end-users are content. LM can expect to dramatically reduce their capital acquisition spend. Virtualized servers and storage will enable USACE to realize more compute power for their buck. Additionally services will become more cost-effective and repeatable. This consolidation effort will lead to a more repeatable, reliable, optimal end-user experience enabling USACE to better support its mission.

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