If one wanted to imagine an example of a project where a database’s speed and constant access to the information it contains is of key importance to the business, it would be hard to think of a better one than Gannet Guard Systems. The history of implementing a specific solution in this company is a perfect illustration of the impact of adequately selected IT technology on the functioning and development of the company.
Gannet Guard Systems provides real-time tracking of vehicles, construction machines, railway wagons, or containers, providing tools and information allowing to manage the fleet, monitor drivers’ work and ensure their safety, improve logistics and decision-making chains, and finally – recover stolen vehicles and equipment.
Although the service seems relatively simple, the mechanisms to collect, analyse, and share the necessary data are technologically advanced and demanding. The company serves tens of thousands of Customers, sending requests for information about hundreds of thousands of objects through a web interface or mobile apps, whose location and other data are modified continuously. This poses a significant challenge for any database infrastructure. Especially since, from the users’ point of view, all this should occur immediately, without them having to stare at the data loading icon.
With the company’s growth, an increasing number of Customers, and the introduction of new services, the existing infrastructure was no longer sufficient – changes and implementation of new IT solutions were required. Such a serious undertaking, of fundamental importance to the company’s operations, could not be a field for experimentation. It required the cooperation of a truly trusted, proven partner.
Datacenter Solutions has been such a partner for Gannet Guard Systems for years. Using their experience and knowledge of Gannet Guard Systems’ needs, gained thanks to the long-term cooperation of both companies, DCS experts proposed the best available solution. “Available” proved to be the keyword – with the sudden challenges to the entire market due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the implementation of the project had to wait. Before it was time to take up the stalled activities, another event occurred that impacted the planned upgrade. That event was the introduction by Dell Technologies, a regular Datacenter Solutions partner, of a brand new solution on the storage shelf: the Dell PowerStore array.
Dell PowerStore offered something quite different from the usual small performance gains and few new features of newer generations of legacy equipment, but it represented an entirely new quality. Designed for uncompromising data access speeds and maximising application performance, the PowerStore application is an example of what can be achieved by betting on entirely new solutions and the latest technologies. The new array uses the NVMe protocol and Storage Class Memory implemented by dual-port Intel Optane SSDs, making it unmatched in terms of throughput, data writing, and data reading. Data that’s being massively downsized thanks to advanced deduplication and compression algorithms. But performance is only part of the picture. PowerStore enables Kubernetes, Ansible, or VMware vRealize orchestration systems, and with pre-configured modules, deployment of the chosen solution takes seconds literally.
Recognising the potential of this solution, Gannet Guard Systems decided to implement PowerStore 1000T. The implementation results were surprising: according to measurements, the new infrastructure enabled a performance gain of 10 to 15 times. As a result, work with data became much faster, and applications’ operation became smooth and responsive.
The Dell PowerStore 1000T has also proven to be a device that meets and exceeds today’s expectations and provides room for future growth.