Adobe - Case Study: VMware, Inc.
VMware Case Study
VMware Virtual SAN Helps Adobe Realize Vision of Software-Defined Data Center INDUSTRY Computer Software LOCATION San Jose, California KEY CHALLENGES • Increasing user demand created a need to scale the platform quickly. • Highly skilled storage personnel were spending time on day-to-day operations at the expense of innovation. • Traditional SAN solutions were too expensive and complex for Adobe’s needs. SOLUTION VMware Virtual SAN leverages Adobe’s investment in DAS while meeting key requirements for scalability, deployment time, and manageability. BUSINESS BENEFITS • Deploy storage resources in minutes, not hours or days • Scalable solution enables rapid response to changes in demand • Storage experts free to work on strategic projects
As subscriptions to Adobe Marketing Cloud increased, the storage team had difficulties scaling the platform because of the legacy direct-attached storage (DAS) architecture. A traditional storage-area network (SAN) solution would be expensive and complex, so Adobe chose VMware Virtual SAN™. While proving cost-effective, the VMware solution also outperformed traditional SAN and DAS solutions. Also, system administrators can operate Virtual SAN with no additional training, enabling highly skilled storage experts to focus on strategic projects. Adobe is the global leader in digital marketing and digital media solutions. The company’s tools and services allow customers to create groundbreaking digital content, deploy it across media and devices, measure and optimize it over time, and achieve greater business success. Adobe is headquartered in San Jose, California and employs more than 12,000 people globally.
The Challenge The market for enterprise marketing software suite (EMSS) is heating up—and Adobe is right in the mix. A recent Forrester report ranked Adobe Marketing Cloud as one of the top entrants in this nascent arena, observing, “This race just started.” The dynamic nature of the EMSS market is no surprise to Frans van Rooyen, a platform architect for Adobe Marketing Cloud. As part of the team responsible for storage architecture, he recently faced a challenge with the platform infrastructure. User subscriptions were increasing rapidly, straining their current storage infrastructure. To stay competitive, Adobe needed to be able to meet fluctuations in demand. However, Adobe knew that would be challenging because the existing architecture didn’t scale easily or quickly, while redeploying unused disk space from one server to another was almost impossible. Implementing a traditional SAN would solve the problem but required considerable capital investment. Another issue was storage management. Van Rooyen and other members of the storage team were spending more and more time managing the day-to-day operation of the platform—time needed for strategic projects. Therefore, the solution had to be simple enough to be managed by other IT staffers without extensive training. Summing up his wish list, van Rooyen says, “I wanted a solution that would leverage our existing DAS technology, offer high performance, and scale quickly and easily.”
vmware case study The Solution “Virtual SAN is a highly efficient solution compared to a traditional SAN or DAS approach. By aggregating storage into a single resource pool, Virtual SAN enables us to be much more cost conscious.” - Frans van Rooyen, Cloud Architect, Adobe Systems Incorporated
VMWARE FOOTPRINT • VMware Virtual SAN • VMware vSphere • VMware vRealize™ Operations™
Since a physical overhaul of the storage infrastructure was out of the question, the team explored a virtual solution. After all, Adobe’s computing resources were already virtualized using VMware vSphere®—why not do the same for storage? The timing was perfect: VMware had introduced Virtual SAN only a few months earlier. Van Rooyen and his team analyzed the published specifications and came to the conclusion that Virtual SAN was exactly the kind of solution they needed. But specs sheets are one thing; sometimes they don’t reflect reality. Would Virtual SAN really meet the company’s performance requirements? The team needed a definitive answer to that question, so he set up a test bed that would allow him to evaluate the performance of Virtual SAN. The results of the test were pleasantly surprising. “In direct comparisons, we saw better performance with Virtual SAN than with DAS or a traditional SAN,” recalls van Rooyen. Additional hands-on tests were also positive, confirming VMware’s assertions about ease of use and fast deployment. When the financial analysis predicted a high return on investment, the decision was easy: Adobe picked Virtual SAN for the Adobe Marketing Cloud platform.
• VMware VRealize™ Automation™
Business Benefits
APPLICATIONS VIRTUALIZED • SAS
Virtual SAN has exceeded expectations. Take, for example, the need for rapid deployment. “We can stand up a chassis with Virtual SAN in just hours,” van Rooyen says. Plus,“Virtual SAN has automation capabilities that allow us to deploy compute resources and storage resources as a single operation—in minutes, not hours or days.” Scaling storage resources is no longer a problem, as van Rooyen explains: “Virtual SAN enables us to easily scale out the storage infrastructure. We don’t have to go through complex reformatting or setup, we just add nodes to the storage cluster.” Compared to other technologies, Virtual SAN is easier on the budget and delivers tangible financial benefits. Unlike competitive products, Virtual SAN is embedded in the vSphere kernel, a key reason why the product can deliver high performance and scale so easily. As an expert in storage technology, van Rooyen appreciates how this technical design decision reduces the time that he and other storage team members must devote to day-to-day operations. As the operations team takes on more routine management tasks, Adobe’s storage experts can focus on strategic initiatives. “We are evaluating cloud management platforms,” van Rooyen says.
Looking Ahead The team sees an expanding role for Virtual SAN at Adobe. Adobe started using Virtual SAN with a single workload and have been happy with the results. In turn, the team plans to virtualize other workloads, even applications such as Hadoop, which in the past were not considered to be ideal candidates for virtualization.
VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www.vmware.com Copyright © 2015 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks 05/15 of their respective companies. Item No: VMW7672-CS-ADOBE-REALIZE-VISION-USLET-102
VMware Virtual SAN Helps Adobe Realize Vision of Software-Defined Data Center INDUSTRY Computer Software LOCATION San Jose, California KEY CHALLENGES • Increasing user demand created a need to scale the platform quickly. • Highly skilled storage personnel were spending time on day-to-day operations at the expense of innovation. • Traditional SAN solutions were too expensive and complex for Adobe’s needs. SOLUTION VMware Virtual SAN leverages Adobe’s investment in DAS while meeting key requirements for scalability, deployment time, and manageability. BUSINESS BENEFITS • Deploy storage resources in minutes, not hours or days • Scalable solution enables rapid response to changes in demand • Storage experts free to work on strategic projects
As subscriptions to Adobe Marketing Cloud increased, the storage team had difficulties scaling the platform because of the legacy direct-attached storage (DAS) architecture. A traditional storage-area network (SAN) solution would be expensive and complex, so Adobe chose VMware Virtual SAN™. While proving cost-effective, the VMware solution also outperformed traditional SAN and DAS solutions. Also, system administrators can operate Virtual SAN with no additional training, enabling highly skilled storage experts to focus on strategic projects. Adobe is the global leader in digital marketing and digital media solutions. The company’s tools and services allow customers to create groundbreaking digital content, deploy it across media and devices, measure and optimize it over time, and achieve greater business success. Adobe is headquartered in San Jose, California and employs more than 12,000 people globally.
The Challenge The market for enterprise marketing software suite (EMSS) is heating up—and Adobe is right in the mix. A recent Forrester report ranked Adobe Marketing Cloud as one of the top entrants in this nascent arena, observing, “This race just started.” The dynamic nature of the EMSS market is no surprise to Frans van Rooyen, a platform architect for Adobe Marketing Cloud. As part of the team responsible for storage architecture, he recently faced a challenge with the platform infrastructure. User subscriptions were increasing rapidly, straining their current storage infrastructure. To stay competitive, Adobe needed to be able to meet fluctuations in demand. However, Adobe knew that would be challenging because the existing architecture didn’t scale easily or quickly, while redeploying unused disk space from one server to another was almost impossible. Implementing a traditional SAN would solve the problem but required considerable capital investment. Another issue was storage management. Van Rooyen and other members of the storage team were spending more and more time managing the day-to-day operation of the platform—time needed for strategic projects. Therefore, the solution had to be simple enough to be managed by other IT staffers without extensive training. Summing up his wish list, van Rooyen says, “I wanted a solution that would leverage our existing DAS technology, offer high performance, and scale quickly and easily.”
vmware case study The Solution “Virtual SAN is a highly efficient solution compared to a traditional SAN or DAS approach. By aggregating storage into a single resource pool, Virtual SAN enables us to be much more cost conscious.” - Frans van Rooyen, Cloud Architect, Adobe Systems Incorporated
VMWARE FOOTPRINT • VMware Virtual SAN • VMware vSphere • VMware vRealize™ Operations™
Since a physical overhaul of the storage infrastructure was out of the question, the team explored a virtual solution. After all, Adobe’s computing resources were already virtualized using VMware vSphere®—why not do the same for storage? The timing was perfect: VMware had introduced Virtual SAN only a few months earlier. Van Rooyen and his team analyzed the published specifications and came to the conclusion that Virtual SAN was exactly the kind of solution they needed. But specs sheets are one thing; sometimes they don’t reflect reality. Would Virtual SAN really meet the company’s performance requirements? The team needed a definitive answer to that question, so he set up a test bed that would allow him to evaluate the performance of Virtual SAN. The results of the test were pleasantly surprising. “In direct comparisons, we saw better performance with Virtual SAN than with DAS or a traditional SAN,” recalls van Rooyen. Additional hands-on tests were also positive, confirming VMware’s assertions about ease of use and fast deployment. When the financial analysis predicted a high return on investment, the decision was easy: Adobe picked Virtual SAN for the Adobe Marketing Cloud platform.
• VMware VRealize™ Automation™
Business Benefits
APPLICATIONS VIRTUALIZED • SAS
Virtual SAN has exceeded expectations. Take, for example, the need for rapid deployment. “We can stand up a chassis with Virtual SAN in just hours,” van Rooyen says. Plus,“Virtual SAN has automation capabilities that allow us to deploy compute resources and storage resources as a single operation—in minutes, not hours or days.” Scaling storage resources is no longer a problem, as van Rooyen explains: “Virtual SAN enables us to easily scale out the storage infrastructure. We don’t have to go through complex reformatting or setup, we just add nodes to the storage cluster.” Compared to other technologies, Virtual SAN is easier on the budget and delivers tangible financial benefits. Unlike competitive products, Virtual SAN is embedded in the vSphere kernel, a key reason why the product can deliver high performance and scale so easily. As an expert in storage technology, van Rooyen appreciates how this technical design decision reduces the time that he and other storage team members must devote to day-to-day operations. As the operations team takes on more routine management tasks, Adobe’s storage experts can focus on strategic initiatives. “We are evaluating cloud management platforms,” van Rooyen says.
Looking Ahead The team sees an expanding role for Virtual SAN at Adobe. Adobe started using Virtual SAN with a single workload and have been happy with the results. In turn, the team plans to virtualize other workloads, even applications such as Hadoop, which in the past were not considered to be ideal candidates for virtualization.
VMware, Inc. 3401 Hillview Avenue Palo Alto CA 94304 USA Tel 877-486-9273 Fax 650-427-5001 www.vmware.com Copyright © 2015 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or more patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents. VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks 05/15 of their respective companies. Item No: VMW7672-CS-ADOBE-REALIZE-VISION-USLET-102
