April 2014

1© Copyright Violin Memory, Inc. 2014

APRIL 2014

Customer Success Stories


Challenge• High storage performance (100,000+ IOPS) in a VDI environment • Excessive power consumption, constrained power and cooling budget• Disaster recovery and resilience an issue in VDI

Boot times reduced 18X; from 9m to 30s

Results• Savings of up to 40% in power consumption, per user• Boot times reduced 18X, to 30 seconds down from 9 minutes • Ability to deliver any software to any student, anywhere, at lower cost• Indistinguishable user experience to that provided by traditional PC

Solution• Violin Flash Array• HP Blade servers• 10Gbit network

Applications• VMware vSphere• Windows 7, Office 10

“Feedback from our students and Student Union has been excellent. Our architecture has allowed speedy additions of new software such as Adobe Dreamweaver. We have also realized potential software license savings where software can be licensed on a concurrent basis rather than a ‘per seat’ basis.”

Gregor Waddell, Assistant Director

Reduced power consumption by up to 40%


Challenge• Their SAP app runs the IP rights management system for a major part of the

organization, used to calculate royalties for its authors.• Nightly and monthly batch processing runs frequently overran, delaying other

mission-critical processes

Nightly reports reduced >7X; 50m from 6hr

Results• Dramatically reduced nightly sales load processing >7X; 50m from 6 hours • Key preparation for financial, month-end reports dropped to 14.5 hours from

56 hours• Month-end billing run completes in 12.5 hours, versus 36.5 hours• Reduced average dialog response time by 30% – the time it takes from the first

dialog request to the presentation of the final data

Solution• Violin Flash Array

Applications• SAP IPM

“Most importantly we’ve removed the daily impact and the pressing risk to our month end close caused by the ever-lengthening batch processing times required as the data-set grew.”

Mark Harwood, SAP Lifecycle

Report generation down to 14.5 hours from 56 hours


3X performance increase in OLTP/Batch Reports

Results• OLTP applications ran faster by 3X• Batch job time shortened from 23000 to 6700 second. • No application modification or infrastructure changes required

Solution• Violin Flash Array• AIX5.3 | HP XP 24000

Applications• SAP ERP• Oracle 9.2.0.6

Challenges• SAP ERP AIX platform and Oracle database was suffering delays in daily

transaction and nightly batch jobs were taking too long. • Need a high-performance, yet compatible solution with existing environment• Accelerate OLTP transactions (POS, billing, oil card value re-charge) during

business hours day time• Accelerate nightly batch jobs (account settlement/reporting)

Accelerated apps without modifying existing environment


Challenge• Limited technology was preventing GFI from launching a new trading application

The switch from Savvis to Equinix DC required a reduction in hops and needed the best latency storage solution

• Needed to build a new storage tier to support the IO blender challenge that a VDI deployment would have faced

Virtualizing trading applications with ease

Results• 4X performance increase from 1,000 transactions per second to over 4,000

transactions per second• Virtualizing all applications gives them a competitive advantage to the market,

faster and with greater services

Solution• 2 Violin Flash Arrays• VMware ESX

Applications• Oracle EBS

“We looked to increase the speed, capacity, and density of our shared data storage platform and turned to Violin Memory to assist us. By embracing this new technology, our clients will benefit from faster transaction speeds and a highly scalable electronic trading infrastructure.”

Jerry Dobner, CTO

4X performance increase in transactions throughput


Accelerating trading applications with flash

Results• Violin Flash Arrays delivered a latency of 120 microseconds in

comparison to EMC storage latency of 8 milliseconds• Enhanced trading platform performance provides KRX with a

competitive advantage

Solution• 15 Violin Flash Arrays

ApplicationsTrading platform/OLTP Applications• Equity trading• Ko-Stock • Bond trading• Derivative trading

Challenges• Korean Stock Exchange was at risk of missing SLAs• Latency was a major issue from existing storage hardware

Accelerated trading apps bring competitive advantage


Challenge• Lending Department couldn’t complete loan bookings because the nightly batch

runs started during business hours halted data processing for the business day• Batch processing times included month-end processing, which began to spill

over into the next business day, conflicting with real-time transactions• Service levels were suffering due to slow applications/storage

Reduced batch jobs to 90m from 5hrs

Results• Reduced job times to 90 minutes from 7 hours• Re-utilize third shift because all processing is done by midnight • The tremendous performance increase allows them to go lights out on the third

shift.


Applications• Oracle database

Query run times down to 9m from 40m

“The test times for the Violin flash Memory Array were unbelievable. Batch reports that took five hours now run in 90 minutes. Upload jobs that used to run in 90 minutes now take 15 minutes.”

Mike Glogowski, Assistant VP


Over 50% reduction in report generation timesChallenge

• Microsoft SQL database batch jobs took 4.5 hours to complete, with ~20ms latency

• Analytics and backup unable to match pace of explosive data growth• Slow storage was slowing down business

Results• 1000% improvement in SQL database performance• Over 50% reduction in run time of day-time analytics and nightly backup jobs• Met reliability demands for 24x7x365 uptime• With tools such as Online Account Management and the NextGear Capital mobile

app, buying and selling inventory is faster, simpler and ultimately more profitable.


Applications• Microsoft SQL• Mix of physical hosts for MS SQL and Hyper-V

for Exchange, File, APP, AD, DNS

“We are the leaders in the automotive flooring market because we focus on providing the right services at the right time. Violin’s storage not only accelerated our services to very demanding automotive dealers, but we see it as an insurance policy for maintaining that lead in the future.”

Chris Brady, CIO

1000% improvement in SQL DB performance


400M patient scans in 60 seconds versus 1 hour

Results• Reduced scans to 60 seconds from from 1 hour• Patients can be seen more quickly, consultants have more time to treat patients• The Trust saves money, grows business


Applications

“Violin Memory’s flash arrays surpassed all the other vendors we evaluated. Disk-based storage just couldn’t achieve the indexing and response times required on this scale – and it was expensive. With Violin Memory, we’re now completing very large table scans, which used to take over an hour, in less than one minute.”

Scott Summerville, Group IT Director

Challenges• Patient record indexing and response times were too slow • Infrastructure to maintain SLAs was becoming very expensive • Impacting service levels to patients and Trust staff

• Oracle• Microsoft SQL


McKesson Healthcare Applications

Results• Reduced latency • Reduced operational expenses


Applications• Oracle Business Analytics• Oracle 11g R2

Challenges• McKesson gained a contract with the UK National Health Service of a major

analytics solution • Necessity to manage large volume of datasets• McKesson needed a high performance solution to manage their new Oracle

Business Analytics platform


Pepperl & Fuchs

Results• Accelerated applications and data access times• Increased its business agility• Lowered operational cost• Efficiently address changes in the business environment


Applications• Oracle 11G R12• Siebel CRM• WITRON Supply Chain

Management

Challenges• Slow data access due to stagnant, slow hard disk environment• Mixed performance requirements for a consolidated workload infrastructure• Not meeting SLAs

“The combination of low latency, high IOPS and high throughput made Violin Flash Memory Arrays a perfect fit for all workloads including the mixed performance requirements of our newly consolidated infrastructure. Additionally, application consolidation and improved efficiency reduced our total infrastructure costs even further.”

Helmut Eckstein, Manager


ROI achieved in 11 months

Results• Batch times decreased from 2 hours to 15 minutes• Operational and application performance improvements• 90% reduction in batch processing time for billing.• ROI after 11 months


Applications• Oracle e-business ERP • Billing systems

Challenges• Reed Exhibitions, organizes 60 trade events in 19 different industries each year

Explosive data growth, storage systems could not handle load and performance was suffering

• SLAs were suffering “The benefits brought to us by Violin Memory are more than fixed latency issues and sped up accounting processes; we have peace of mind that our business is running optimally.”

Yanek Le Bras

Reduced batch times to 15 minutes from 2 hours


Webfarm VM creation time up by up to 800%

Results• Web server development time up to 10X faster• VM creation time is reduced by an 90%• Excellent user experience• Happy customers


Applications• VMware• Webfarm

Challenges• Existing IBM GPFS supporting VRT’s virtual machines couldn’t deliver

the necessary operational performance and speed• Needed a solution with requirements for performance, data integrity

and cost“The implementation of the Violin flash Memory Arrays was seamless and our objective to get the virtual machine creation time down was easily achieved. Since the installation VM operations are carried out in minutes; before that it took up to ten times longer. This is an incredible improvement. Now our VMs are just as fast as physical machines and slow response time is history. We’re achieving up to 800% improvement in VM creation time. What a difference!”

Lieven Troch, Manager of IT

10X faster web server development time


Challenge• End-user queries taking too long for SAS analytics• Floor space requirements were large for a 19TB storage deployment due to

performance requirements

Analytics report times reduced from 5 to 2 days

Results• Consolidate 19TB of HP EVA-based SAS temp space onto 2 Arrays• 60% end-user response time improvement• 10 to 1 floor space consolidation

Solution• 2 Violin Flash Arrays

Applications• SAS Analytics

“End user response time improved to allow for more queries as well as more robust and rich business information.”

60% end user response time improvement


Challenge• To meet SLAs, Veolia relies on its ability to store, share and access the latest data

to monitor daily revenue and provide better, more targeted customer service.• Legacy systems struggled to meet SLAs for very I/O intensive billing application• Bottlenecks forced Veolia management to wait days to receive revenue figures• Consolidate 70 databases and its IT infrastructure from 70 different locations

throughout France to one server

Business Acceleration at Veolia

Results• Both sequential and random read/write processing faster by as much as 4X• Reports that took days could not be completed in hours• Exceeded SLAs


Applications• Billing Application• Microsoft SQL Server

“The Violin all flash arrays have accelerated the way we do business. We need data in real-time to get an accurate and reliable picture of how we are doing at any given time. Previously we were frustrated having to wait for data to become available. Now with Violin flash array technology the data is ready and waiting for us whenever we need it.”

CTO


Challenge• For infrastructure refresh, Charityshare chose a VDI solution requiring dedicated

storage.• VDI requirements: a minimum of 35 IOPS per user & 4GB of storage per user• Existing storage solution could not meet VDI solution requirements

Up to 80% lower power, cooling, space costs

Results• YoY savings in support/management costs over a 5year period would be £200

per VDI unit compared to PCs• Increased flexibility to deploy new software easily• Ability to increase number of users without performance degradation

Solution• Violin Flash Array• HP • VMware Virtual Server

Applications• Microsoft Windows 7• AppSense 8• Citrix XenDesktop

“Unit costs have fallen by over 25% since operations started. Annual savings to the participating charities are now running at over £1 million a year.”

YoY savings over 5 years of £200 per VDI unit


Challenge• Real-time identity authentication depends on fast response time from the

underlying IT infrastructure and high application throughput.

Enabling real-time fraud alerts

Results• Reduced the cost per IOP by nearly 9x (from £8.88 to £1.03)• 2.7x quicker response times, and almost 22x more IOPs• Reduced the risk of payment card fraud


Applications• OLTP

“I was very impressed and genuinely excited at what this would mean for us. The performance is outstanding, and more than meets the demands of high-volume transaction processing environments like ours.”

Mary Reeder, CTO


Challenge• Offer a low-cost service with zero impact and no additional license costs• Increase web traffic by 10x within 6 months• Goal: Beat the new player, Free Telecom, who was taking market share by

offering a web-based service at an aggressive price

Violin eliminates €1M year long project

Results• Non-intrusive, non-impact deployment within two weeks• IO latency under 150u• 35x faster than IBM’s tier-1 storage

Solution• 2 Flash Arrays• HP DL servers

Applications “Violin Memory cuts running costs by €1M at Bouygues Telecom with an immediate ROI.”

35X faster than IBM Storage

• CRM Application


76% improvement in billing processing time

Results• Reduced processing time for its mission-critical

billing app by 76% • Streamlined operations• No impact to other business processes


Applications• Billing Application

Challenges• Sunrise billing system is a business-critical process with strict time

constraints requiring bills to be issued within a 48-hour window• Legacy storage was unpredictable and slow in performance • Storage bottlenecks meant data back-up and critical applications were

halted during the bill run, which impacted multiple areas of the business“Violin Flash Memory Arrays have proven to be a vast improvement compared to our previous system, which often forced us to bill in arrears. This is no longer the case as we now have a fast, reliable process. Our goal is to get the billing process down to less than one day and I’m confident that with Violin Memory we will be able to achieve this objective quickly and easily.”

Detlef Steinmetz, CIO

April 2014

Documents

students university

anglia ruskin university

copyright violin memory

university of oxford

british university

monthend reports

x performance increase

constrained power