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CASE STUDY
Palagan Limited
Hardware Solution - Mirrored Servers Using Hyper-V Virtual Technology
Who are Palagan Limited
Palagan is a UK leading manufacturer for the In-line manufacture of plain and printed films and bags.
Established in 1974 Palagan manufactures high performance polythene packaging 24 hours a day from their factory located approx 50km north of London – enabling them to service the U.K, Ireland & Western Europe.
Palagan became part of the highly successful Plastics Capital group during 2008.
The challenge
Palagan operates shifts outside of the usual 9 – 5 remit it was becoming critical that the hardware infrastructure would need to support production shifts ‘out of standard working hours’.
Whilst Palagan’s hardware was already re-enforced with the usual RAID discs and UPS, the failure of a Processor, Motherboard, Network Switch or worst case a radical server failure – would render Palagan unable to process internally. The company is reliant on their accounting and manufacturing software solutions to drive their business and the possible 2 – 3 working days of downtime should a failure occur would have an unfavorable impact on the business as a whole.
Palagans’ QA & Logistics Manager tasked the Qi hardware team as their hardware support provider, to research and propose a hardware solution which offered the most resilience possible but at a budget that was achievable. Historically this level of enhanced resilience has been affordable to ‘blue chip’ companies in the UK.
The solutionHardware Solution - Mirrored Servers Using Hyper-V Virtual Technology
The solution needed to be complete and take into account the designated server area and restrictions on physical layout. Qi offered advice to Palagan with regard to the necessary preparation of the server area.
The solution’s key driver was to deliver the very best server resilience possible. This was achieved by introducing a protocol of mirroring servers using Hyper-V Virtual Technology.
In simple terms the solution required a main server (recently replaced by Palagan via Qi) and one backup server housed in a single cabinet. Both servers are running Hyper-V utilizing two way replication which occurs in close to ‘real time’
The outcome
Minimal Downtown and Loss of Data
This project delivered against a reassuringly realistic budget, ensures that even a radical server, motherboard, processor or network switch failure, will result in less than 5 minutes of down time and almost no loss of data. Palagan now have peace of mind that their server infrastructure is as resilient as possible.
Disruption to processing regardless of the time of day is minimized and the business is protected.
"Qi took the time to understand our needs and worked to develop and thereafter implement the hardware solution we needed. Will and Mike were a pleasure to have on site and the whole process involved minimal interruption."