Ardent

Datacentre project delivered and managed by ESP's professional services

The Client

ESP high level of engagement and service delivery

Ardent Consulting Engineers (Ardent) is a multi-disciplinary civil engineering consultancy for whom ESP has been providing support since their inception in 2005. As a trusted advisor for their IT environment, ESP has seen Ardent through 3 office moves so far, and team growth from 6 to 90 employees.

Expansion plans

With plans to double in size over the next 5 years, they were looking to install a new server infrastructure with increased data capacity to not only host the existing virtual servers and current data, but also to allow for the growth.

We designed a solution that would deliver the following enhancements:

• Increase performance by doubling of internal bandwidth speed from 8Gb/s to 16Gb/s
• Increase performance by the addition of a true fibre channel network
• Increase performance through direct access from the fibre channel network to the main ethernet network
• Increase storage capacity for future growth, three times the current size
• Install newer and faster physical servers
• Migrate the data and decommission the old servers
• Repurpose existing infrastructure and increase performance
• Future proof solution for the vision to double in company size over the next 5 years

ESP Difference

ESP BESPOKE SOLUTION

Increasing performance and storage capacity

By installing a fibre channel switch solution which connects the servers and storage together, the new setup operates at speeds of 16Gbps with two switches installed to provide fault tolerance.

ESP has replaced the existing SAN which provided 20TB of storage, with a new SAN of more than three times the current capacity at 70TB, thus exceeding the desired requirements. With fibre trunk ports into the Cisco Catalyst, we’ve been able to reduce network bottlenecks significantly.

“A key strategic partner for Ardent Consulting for over 15 years, ESP truly understands the user journey and delivers a quality experience that our users can rely on. From service desk to EUC supply or IT support, we see them as a true extension of our business.”

Steve Burton, Divisional Director, Ardent

Outcome