Burges Salmon implemented HP FlexFabric technology to improve performance and bandwidth utilisation on its network, and to lower port count. The HP FlexFabric architecture leverages the use of HP Virtual Connect and HP Networking products to create a common, virtualised network fabric. HP E6600 Switches provide the core networking functionality that enables a future-proof network and HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 provides the most flexible way for Burges Salmon to connect the servers and storage to the network. This approach eliminates the latency and contention issues caused by traditional switching. Burges Salmon instead integrates servers and storage with a seamless, virtual network fabric – contributing to the performance of the virtual machines.


“If we hadn’t have gone with HP BladeSystem, Virtual Connect and P4500 storage solution, the move could potentially be extremely high risk,” says Seaman. “It would have cost the same as we spent on the new equipment anyway, and the ongoing costs would have been astronomical.”


Cost savings due to the virtualised environment is considerable. Burges Salmon previously had 110 physical servers and after the consolidation exercise was complete, it had less than 20 servers. “We will save £30,000 a year in electricity costs alone,” says Seaman. “I’m also looking at a reduction of approximately 50 per cent in our support costs -- because we have fewer servers and there are less hardware upgrades and licenses to pay for.”


Easier provision and management


“Management of the new servers will be a lot easier, and we’ll have a clean build environment,” comments Seaman. “We’ve found that with virtualisation technology, IT support can be a lot more responsive to the end users – for example when heavy snow and extreme weather conditions prevented many of our staff from reaching the office, in the virtual environment it was very quick and easy for us to provision extra IT resources for end-users who were stranded at home.”


Burges Salmon finds it difficult to plan maintenance windows because any downtime will stop a lawyer from working, as Seaman comments: “Most of our scheduled downtime needs to take place out of hours and on days when there are no deals being completed. There’s a requirement for very high availability which this system gives us – we can make changes to the dormant cluster, test it, and then failover instantaneously back to the live system. If there are any problems with the changes, we can then simply go to the original server.”


Customer solution at a glance:


Primary software • VMware vSphere 4.0


• VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager • Microsoft Windows 2008 • Microsoft Exchange 2007 • Microsoft SQL 2008


Primary hardware • HP StorageWorks P4500 SAN • HP c7000 BladeSystem Enclosures


• HP Networking E8212, E5400, E-MSM765 zl Mobility Controller, E-MSM422 Access Point, E2910 al


• HP E6600 Switches • HP ProLiant BL490 G6 server blades • HP ProLiant BL685 G6 server blades • HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 10Gb Ethernet Modules


The new technology gives its users fast access to applications and its large document repository – which contains 15 million documents in an Autonomy iManage database. Around 1,000 documents are added and amended every day, including emails, client documentation and legal documents created in Microsoft Office®. Other applications used by Burges Salmon include an SQL-based core finance system, Microsoft Exchange®, digital dictation capabilities and a knowledge management system. Now, all workloads operate more efficiently and remain available to Burges Salmon’s lawyers at all hours, regardless of maintenance, failure or disaster.


Improved resilience


Following the move, the staging site will become the disaster recovery site. With the new disaster recovery site, Burges Salmon will increase resilience and availability. A Local Area Network (LAN) extension runs between its main building and the co-location site, so failover (using VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager) is almost instantaneous with no impact on end users.


The Commercial team were crucial in developing the best solution for Burges Salmon’s business needs


”Commercial are extremely knowledgeable, professional, and have a very clear understanding of our infrastructure and our requirements -- that’s what sets them apart,” says Seaman. “The HP Converged Infrastructure has given our network the capability to grow with our business, and our HP account manager is always there if needed, at the end of the phone.”


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