• Streamlines processes to create major time savings

Affiniti, the communications integrator, is pleased to announce that Marshalls plc, the UK's leading hard landscaping manufacturer, has successfully deployed a leading edge EMC data management solution. The designs for the new system were a joint collaboration between Marshalls and Affiniti.  The infrastructure enables Marshalls to remove prohibitive maintenance costs, increase storage performance three-fold, manage data more flexibly and efficiently, and provide rapid storage expansion capability.

Marshalls operates its own quarries and manufacturing sites, as well as 12 service centres and 14 offices throughout the UK. Having realised the full potential of its last data management system over 6 years, the business was keen to continue enjoying the benefits of reliability, availability and performance with a new infrastructure, which has been sized to handle a mammoth 54 Terrabytes of data and, with the DMX, brings a threefold performance improvement.

The new solution brings vastly improved performance and cost savings. By adopting a tiered storage strategy Marshalls has a more detailed view of the data environment so that it can be moved and tiered according to its value and criticality throughout its lifecycle. This highly flexible approach ensures that Marshalls can gain access to information quickly and efficiently " reducing the overall cost of storage.

The resilient nature of the Centerra architecture has been leveraged to reduce backup times to ensure multiple copies across sites, which totally eliminates the previous 18-hour backup programme. This advanced automatic archiving also provides easily searchable and indexed information to ensure consistent backup and data recovery times and protects the organisation in the event of a disaster. As part of a best practice approach, the infrastructure design also enables improved business continuity.  In the event of an outage the environment is capable of automatic fail over to the disaster recovery site, essentially reducing any business downtime and enabling the organisation to meet its goal as a highly resilient, 24 x 7 operation.
 
Affiniti's Data Management consultants have been working closely with Marshalls' IS team throughout, initially by providing independent consultancy to assess the needs of the business and to create a set of measurement criteria.  Critical to the success of this project was the knowledge held by Marshalls who were able to provide detailed information on the systems and applications to be affected by the new solution. 

José Chacoris, Information Systems Manager at Marshalls plc, said: "At Marshalls we always strive to achieve maximum leverage from our IS investment which dovetails into providing a reduced cost of ownership and further facilitates in keeping a tight control over operational expenditure.  To achieve this it is important to choose the right technologies and design solutions that will help maximise business efficiency and provide Marshalls with a competitive advantage. This new solution brings performance gains and cost savings along with consistent backup and data recovery times, which helps Marshalls in achieving a highly resilient 24 x 7 operation. As in any successful business we need to be in a position to adapt to today's constantly changing business requirements by ensuring that the environment is able to deliver performance, stability, resilience and fluid expandability."�

"We have been working closely with Affiniti for some time. This partnership has complemented and facilitated Marshalls' own inhouse knowledge and has been a positive experience,"� continued José Chacoris.  "We know exactly what we are getting: quality, honesty and commitment. It is as if the Affiniti team is an extension of our own. What is apparent is that Affiniti seem dedicated to the long term vision with Marshalls, which in my view is essential for a healthy relationship."�

Paul Renucci, Managing Director of Affiniti, said:  "Access to accurate and timely business information is vital to the success of any organisation and deploying the right data management solution is central to this. The complexities of the storage environment mean that it is essential to work in close partnership with the customer. Intimate knowledge of the applications and systems onsite by Marshalls' IS team absolutely contributed to the success of this project. By gaining such a highly detailed picture of their business and systems we were able to apply our experience and expertise to gain the best results."�

Marshalls selected a storage infrastructure based on the EMC Symmetrix DMX-3 platform with additional tiered storage based around the Clariion CX3-40 for back up to disk, EMC Centerra for a low cost archiving solution which further leverages Marshalls previously adopted Information Lifecyle Management Strategy (ILM).  A full range of management and data mobility tools have been deployed as part of the overall solution with clustered enabled failover using SRDF-CE between the primary and disaster recovery sites.  Included in the project was an upgrade to the storage area network and migration of all Marshalls' critical application data along with VMWare environment to the new tiered storage infrastructure.

Affiniti, the communications integrator, specialises in designing, implementing and managing intelligent communications solutions for private and public sector organisations.

Some of its customers include: Experian, Carphone Warehouse, British Airways, Ford, Admiral Insurance, Edinburgh Telford College , Royal Liverpool & Broadgreen Hospital , Cheshire Police, Citigroup, Lloyds TSB.

Affiniti is part of the KCOM Group.

KCOM Group PLC provides a range of integrated IT and communications services to businesses, and internet and telecommunications services to selected consumer markets, within the UK .

The Group's portfolio of businesses works with both leading private enterprise customers and public sector organisations. Through its Affiniti, Smart421 and JAM IP brands, the Group delivers solutions covering unified communications, contact centre solutions, data management, applications integration and managed services.

The KCOM Group also includes a regionally-focused business, Kingston Communications, which supports small to medium-sized businesses. Through its KC and Eclipse brands, the business offers a wide range of internet-based and telecommunications services. The regional business also provides telephony and internet services to targeted consumers through its KC, Eclipse and Karoo brands.

The Group is listed on the London Stock Exchange and employs over 2,700 people across the UK .

Cristina Whittington
Nelson Bostock Communications
020 7792 7440
E: cristina.whittington@nelsonbostock.com

Dianne White
Affiniti
01442 883370
E: dianne.white@affiniti.com