In one of my earlier blogs, -"How to get more SAN mileage...." -I had highlighted how one can deploy End-to-End FCoE using a converged Director-class platform, like Nexus 7000, connected directly from the converged access switch, like UCS FI, in order to get the utmost agility. Well, this is how ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC), a Cloud Service provider, deployed its network to get significantly higher mileage.

CTC provides a wide range of IT services for business customers in Japan. The company's Cloud Platform Group recently launched its innovative ElasticCUVIC shared private cloud service, which helps customers reduce infrastructure cost and management complexity. With large numbers of VMs, CTC wanted to simplify its data center architecture and IT management while optimizing scalability.  The challenge was to deliver high-performance, easy-to-manage cloud services at scale.

The company evaluated several storage networking solutions and turned to Cisco for Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) solutions, which greatly simplify the infrastructure and management. CTC built its two newest data centers in Yokohama and Kobe with ultra-high performance and flexibility in mind. CTC implemented an End-to-End FCoE architecture using Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches, Cisco UCS servers, and FCoE connections between the switches, servers, and FCoE storage arrays.

With the converged FCoE architecture, ElasticCUVIC is enabling CTC customers to gaintime and cost savingsthat were previously almost impossible to imagine. In addition to the menu of core services, CTC offers a range of options that can be quickly provisioned through the intelligent, converged FCoE fabric and as well as through the UCS Service profiles. By using ElasticCUVIC, customers can reduce their hardware costs through virtualization, right-size their infrastructures, and reinvest engineering resources in innovation instead of daily IT management.

"The new converged infrastructure provides us with a single architecture that is supported by one team. It will support anything that customers want to host, both today and tomorrow, and allow us to differentiate our services for improving our competitive advantage."

- Tomoyuki Higashi, Assistant to GM, Cloud Service Marketing & Development

"We chose Cisco Nexus 7000 Series Switches and the Cisco Nexus 7000 F2e-Series Fiber Module because they offer maximum flexibility for delivering converged services. We anticipate rapid growth as customers increasingly migrate applications to the cloud, and we are prepared to deliver whatever they will need."

 - Nagaki Fujioka, Executive Officer GM, Cloud Service Marketing & Development

CTC is already planning to implement additional automated features in its new infrastructure and is looking ahead to programmable network capabilities. More information available in the case study.