|
Solving Rapid Data Growth with MetaFarms
About MetaFarms
MetaFarms, a developer of software to manage animal-agribusiness companies, has been providing for a growing clientele of livestock owners since 2000. Managing data for approximately 3.3 million hogs, MetaFarms’ customers represent ten percent of pork production in the United States and five percent of pork production in Australia.
The Challenge
Since entering the industry, MetaFarms has seen rapid and continued growth year over year. Its customer base has nearly doubled in a very short amount of time, and with this level of growth, MetaFarms’ original network infrastructure — one Web server, one database server and one database warehouse utilizing direct attached storage — was soon stretched to capacity. The breaking point came when MetaFarms added a large Australian client. Typically, MetaFarms was able to load new clients and process their data during periods of slow traffic, but with the time-zone difference between North America and Australia, MetaFarms was constantly running reports at all hours and their IT infrastructure couldn’t keep up.
The Solution
MetaFarms consulted with Nexus Information Systems on their capacity issue, which was identified as two apparent needs: resolving the immediate capacity issue, and restructuring the IT environment for continued data growth. The key elements then were implementing a virtual IT environment and using VMware technology and HP servers in order to position MetaFarms for its continued growth, as well as easing their storage capacity with an EMC SAN.
“The easy answer would have been to just relieve the pressures of their immediate needs. However, their concerns and needs went beyond storage. By installing VMware, we created the virtualization of servers that provided the needed room for growth and modular capabilities for data increase.”
With virtualization, MetaFarms now has the ability to provide the additional resources and fail over services in real-time, creating redundancy and system capacity.
“Nexus Information Systems engineers came out and met with us about our business, growth, problems, and needs for the future. They identified areas to consider and different options to explore. They pointed us to exactly the right solution for our needs. Their insight and counsel was invaluable!”
The differences in storage and efficiency from the Nexus information Systems solution were immediate. MetaFarms is now able to add a new customer in less than three hours, a process that previously took days or even weeks to finish. Daily customer reports take just 40 minutes, in comparison to the nine hours it used to run.
“With Nexus Information Systems, I didn’t have to be an expert on VMware or EMC. They acted as a working partner with good, reliable processes. I was confident that they cared as much about the project’s success as I did.”
.gif){kind=small}
|
Search Our Site
You Are Here:
Home
Resource Case Studies/White Papers Solving Rapid Data Growth with MetaFarms
