The AA went through a period of massive change, which its existing storage infrastructure was not flexible enough to cope with. E-mail messages were also increasing in volume and size, and the AA had to regularly expand its storage capacity to cope with the incessant growth in corporate data. The mixed bag of storage platforms in the AA's data center made the infrastructure complicated, with expensive operating costs and heavy manpower.
The AA recognized that it needed to find a more cost effective and efficient means to manage and store its data, while complying with Financial Services Authority requirements.
Success Story
The AA Shrinks Operating
Costs and Speeds Time
to Market with NetApp
CUSTOMER PROFILE cope with the incessant growth in corporate KEY HIGHLIGHTS The Automobile Association, better known data. The mixed bag of storage platforms in Industry as the AA, was founded in 1905 and is the AA's data center made the infrastructure Automotive the UK's largest motoring organization, complicated, with expensive operating costs providing roadside assistance for its and heavy manpower.The challenge 15 million members.Centralize storage to reduce costs, The AA recognized that it needed to find a achieve compliance, and provide Today, the AA's business stretches in many more cost effective and efficient means to disaster recovery. different directions. Although best known manage and store its data, while complying for its breakdown recovery business, the with Financial Services Authority requirements.The solution company also provides a range of other ŽNetApp FAS storage systems and Dave Snowling, technical architect at the AA, services, from car insurance and other TNetApp Snapshot technology. explains: "We were facing spiraling storage financial services to route planning and costs at a time when organizations were Benefits evaluating secondhand cars. trying to reduce their operational overheads. . Accelerated time to market for All of these services are powered by data, Storage is not particularly visible within the new applications by up to 50% which must be securely and efficiently business, so it was becoming increasingly . Reduced manpower to support stored for both business continuity and difficult to justify the expense."storage by more than 80% compliance.. Reduced information recovery time When sold by its parent company, Centrica, from hours to minutes THE CHALLENGE in late 2004, the AA needed to establish its . Reduced operating costs by more own infrastructure and disaster recovery Improve business agility and meet than 40% capability. The company took the opportucompliance regulations while reducing . Achieved compliance and disaster nity to build a new storage platform that costsrecovery goals for continuous data would help reduce costs and create a The AA went through a period of massive availability flexible and scalable environment for future change, which its existing storage infra growth. This vision needed to quickly structure was not flexible enough to cope become a reality to make sure that the with. E-mail messages were also increasing company had sufficient capacity to cope in volume and size, and the AA had to with the migration of applications and data.regularly expand its storage capacity to "O ur IT operating costs have reduced
from $108 million to $64 million.
The new storage infrastructure [from
NetApp] has been instrumental in
helping us achieve these cost
savings."Darragh O'KeeffeInfrastructure Strategy Manager, The AA
THE SOLUTION To maintain the continuous availability Improved data throughput on the AA's SAS Centralize storage and standardize of critical information, the AA has split its business intelligence platform alone has on NetApp 200TB NAS estate across two sites, with data opened up new marketing and customer Working closely with the IT services firm being replicated between the two locations. research opportunities that will help drive the Company-i, the AA decided on a centralized Using NetApp Snapshot technology to back business forward.storage infrastructure, recognizing that it up their 3,000 mailboxes means that mes And this agility is mirrored across the comwould be cheaper and easier to run than the sages-or the entire e-mail service-can be pany. Fast access to information enables the existing distributed architecture. "We wanted rapidly restored at either site in the event of a system outage or disaster. AA to respond to market opportunities far to create a central pool of storage resources more rapidly-time to market for new appliwhich could be grown methodically to meet To help simplify the ongoing management cations is now up to 50% faster.the needs of the business," recalls Snowling. of the storage environment, the AA uses NetApp Operations Manager, a management Centralizing and standardizing its storage Storage from NetApp had been used in the and monitoring tool that provides a central means that the AA has also been able to Centric... [download for more]
