86 2012 Issue 01 | dell.com/powersolutions Customer perspective A n organization that has been in operation for nearly 150 years understands the importance of adaptability. Gerard Adriaan Heineken started his company in 1863 in a small brewery in Amsterdam, and Heineken has since grown to become a global beverage brand with 140 breweries in more than 70 countries. Today, it operates two main brewing facilities in Zoeterwoude and Den Bosch in the Netherlands. The IT infrastructure at Heineken grew rapidly in response to the company’s worldwide expansion. By 2004, the brewery was facing the challenge of managing and supporting 460 servers in 12 separate server rooms in the Netherlands alone. The Zoeterwoude facility is its largest data center, hosting four clusters comprising 121 physical servers. Heineken was an early adopter of virtualization, demonstrating one of the many ways in which its flexibility has supported its longevity. Currently 60 percent of its IT is virtualized and it Utilizing ingenuity and flexibility to sustain itself for decades, Heineken has grown its beverage brand worldwide. To support its ongoing expansion cost-effectively, the international brewer deployed scalable, virtualized Dell ™ Compellent ™ storage. Heineken Refreshing brewery data centers with virtualized storage aims to achieve 90 percent virtualization in 2012. The company also plans to implement an approach to business continuity with data redundancy between its two main plants. But these plans must take into account the five-person engineering team at Heineken, including just two storage engineers. “We started encountering storage issues,” says Mike Robers, senior team leader, Infrastructure team, at Heineken Netherlands. “In Zoeterwoude, we reached capacity for the enterprise virtual arrays, and in Den Bosch, CPU limitations meant that we couldn’t upgrade to a newer operating system. We were also experiencing high support costs.” Heineken evaluated a number of vendors during its search for a scalable and flexible system that could provide centralized backup for both sites. As part of the evaluation process, Heineken asked one of its partners, Inter Access, to review the technical specifications for selected vendors. The partner introduced Heineken to the Dell Compellent Storage Center ™ storage area network (SAN) array featuring the Dell Fluid Data ™ architecture. “We quickly came to the conclusion that Dell Compellent was the clear leader in terms of scalability and the lowest support costs. Both are crucial factors in selecting Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2012 Issue 1. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
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86 2012 Issue 01 | dell.com/powersolutions
Customer perspective
An organization that has been in operation for nearly 150 years understands
the importance of adaptability. Gerard Adriaan Heineken started his company
in 1863 in a small brewery in Amsterdam, and Heineken has since grown
to become a global beverage brand with 140 breweries in more than
70 countries. Today, it operates two main brewing facilities in Zoeterwoude and Den
Bosch in the Netherlands.
The IT infrastructure at Heineken grew rapidly in response to the company’s worldwide
expansion. By 2004, the brewery was facing the challenge of managing and supporting
460 servers in 12 separate server rooms in the Netherlands alone. The Zoeterwoude facility
is its largest data center, hosting four clusters comprising 121 physical servers.
Heineken was an early adopter of virtualization, demonstrating one of the many ways in
which its flexibility has supported its longevity. Currently 60 percent of its IT is virtualized and it
Utilizing ingenuity and flexibility to sustain itself for decades, Heineken
has grown its beverage brand worldwide. To support its ongoing
expansion cost-effectively, the international brewer deployed scalable,
virtualized Dell™ Compellent™ storage.
Heineken
Refreshing brewery data centers with virtualized storage
aims to achieve 90 percent virtualization in
2012. The company also plans to implement
an approach to business continuity with data
redundancy between its two main plants.
But these plans must take into account the
five-person engineering team at Heineken,
including just two storage engineers.
“We started encountering storage
issues,” says Mike Robers, senior team
leader, Infrastructure team, at Heineken
Netherlands. “In Zoeterwoude, we
reached capacity for the enterprise virtual
arrays, and in Den Bosch, CPU limitations
meant that we couldn’t upgrade to a
newer operating system. We were also
experiencing high support costs.”
Heineken evaluated a number of
vendors during its search for a scalable
and flexible system that could provide
centralized backup for both sites. As
part of the evaluation process, Heineken
asked one of its partners, Inter Access, to
review the technical specifications
for selected vendors. The partner
introduced Heineken to the Dell
Compellent Storage Center™ storage
area network (SAN) array featuring the
Dell Fluid Data™ architecture.
“We quickly came to the conclusion
that Dell Compellent was the clear leader in
terms of scalability and the lowest support
costs. Both are crucial factors in selecting
Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2012 Issue 1. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
dell.com/powersolutions | 2012 Issue 01 87
Customer perspective
a solution, because our storage systems
operate for up to six years,” says Robers.
Easy migration for rapid operation
Heineken began its migration to Dell
Compellent Storage Center arrays in its
Den Bosch plant, primarily because it was
a small site with few servers and fairly low
complexity. After the Compellent storage
arrays were delivered, installation took only
two days, and the entire system was up and
running in another two days.
The migration process in the
Zoeterwoude facility was more complex
than in the Den Bosch plant because the
existing configuration included Microsoft®
Windows Server® 2003 and Windows
Server 2008 operating systems, as well
as an IBM® AIX® server. “We migrated
45 terabytes of data and hundreds of
servers, and, after just eight weeks,
90 percent of servers were migrated and
operational,” says Robers.
Dynamic tiering for optimized storage
Dell Compellent Data Progression™
automated tiered storage software allows
Heineken to invest in large, low-cost disk
drives for less frequently accessed data.
The company not only spends less on initial
device costs, but it also can reduce power
consumption cost-effectively.
Automated tiered storage dynamically
moves enterprise data to the optimal tier
based on actual use. As storage expands,
the company migrates infrequently
accessed data to low-cost, high-capacity
drives, and storage is therefore optimized
for application needs. And with high-
utilization data on the top tier, the IT team
can deliver optimized performance to
Heineken employees.
“We were impressed by the added value
offered by Dell Compellent’s automated
tiered storage. With our previous provider,
support costs had increased steadily over
time, but with Dell Compellent costs are
stable,” says Robers.
The company also can protect its data
and saves storage space with the snapshot
technology available in Dell Compellent
storage. Once the first snapshot is taken,
only incremental changes in data are
captured, allowing Heineken to complete
ongoing snapshots for near-instant
recovery—and help reduce storage space
usage. “With our Dell Compellent SAN we
can take snapshots constantly, and recover
data to any point in time,” says Robers.
Integrated reporting
and round-the-clock support
Another key advantage of Dell Compellent
Storage Center arrays for Heineken
was the ease of reporting and analysis.
“Our previous solution did not offer us
adequate reporting and analysis when we
encountered performance issues. As a
result, we had to hire external personnel
at a cost of €7,000 a visit,” says Robers.
“With Dell Compellent, we can easily view
what we need. And it’s so simple to use.
You don’t need a high level of technical
expertise to understand the analysis.”
In addition, Dell Compellent Copilot
Support delivers proactive, comprehensive
24/7 access to support. Copilot engineers
continuously monitor system performance
at Heineken and alert internal engineers
of potential problems. When issues arise,
a Copilot engineer is available when and
where Heineken needs one, without any
delay. And a built-in software subscription
helps ensure that the brewing company
always has the latest patches, updates, and
releases, so they are fully operational
and compliant.
This support offering helped convince
the management team at Heineken to opt
for Dell Compellent storage. “Since our
internal IT support team is so small, the
engineer on call may not be our storage
expert. Now we just call Dell Compellent
and they do the work remotely. For us, that’s
really important and has played a big part in
our decision to choose Dell,” says Robers.
Quenching the thirst for virtualized storageTo support its two main brewery facilities in the Netherlands, Heineken deployed Dell Compellent Storage Center storage area
network (SAN) arrays featuring the Dell Fluid Data architecture for the foundation of its cost-effective virtualized infrastructure.
460Because of worldwide expansion, Heineken faced the challenge of managing 460 servers in 12 data centers, and virtualized Compellent storage was up to the task.
90%An early adopter of virtualization, Heineken has set its sights on increasing its current 60 percent virtualized IT to 90 percent in 2012.
45 TBUtilizing Compellent Storage Center storage arrays, Heineken migrated 45 TB of data and hundreds of servers at its Zoeterwoude facility in just eight weeks.
Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, 2012 Issue 1. Copyright © 2012 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
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