News | June 23, 2011

Ecom Atlantic, Inc. Selects Nexsan For High-Density, High-Performance Virtual Storage

Large Global Coffee, Cotton and Cocoa Merchant Optimizes Storage Space and Builds an Efficient Primary Storage and Disaster Recovery Infrastructure using Nexsan Flexible Storage Systems(tm)

Nexsan(r), a leading independent provider of disk-based storage systems, recently announced that Ecom Atlantic, Inc., a large international commodity merchant, has standardized its virtual storage and disaster recovery architecture using Nexsan SASBeast(r) storage systems. Selected for their high density, production performance and cost efficiency, the Nexsan SASBeast systems have been deployed to support Ecom Atlantic's VMware-powered virtual infrastructure and disaster recovery storage requirements.

Ecom Atlantic, Inc., also globally known as Ecom Agroindustrial Corporation Ltd., has been in commodity trading for over 150 years, specializing in coffee, cotton and cocoa. The company has 40 offices worldwide and more than 3,000 employees. To support the data backbone for this global operation, Ecom has connected its offices with a worldwide network that is linked together with firewalls so that the company can support information flow and communication from one location to another, 24 x 7.

With rapid data growth, Ecom needed a high density storage solution to hold the production data for its Microsoft SQL database, Lotus Notes email system, Fileshare-based file storage and FTP server data. All of these applications have been virtualized using VMware and needed an efficient storage solution that offered enterprise-class performance without taking up too much rack space in its size-constrained data center.

Ecom was introduced to Nexsan solutions through its solution partner, DKAMSI, LLC. DKAMSI identified the Nexsan SASBeast as an ideal virtual storage solution to meet the high-density, high-performance storage needs of Ecom's environment.

"Ecom's previous network storage device was the same physical size as the Nexsan SASBeast, but it had one tenth the capacity," said Lisa Mehl, President, DKAMSI. "And they were always fearful of its reliability and performance. The Nexsan solution delivered the high density Ecom needed along with the virtualization-ready features they required to support their VMware infrastructure." After installing the Nexsan SASBeast in their production environment, Ecom was so pleased with its performance that they turned immediately to Nexsan when they began to deploy their disaster recovery strategy. "The Nexsan system works great for us," said Willa Zandi, Director of IT, Ecom Atlantic, Inc. "In fact, it's worked so well for us that we've deployed a second set of equipment at a co-location facility for off-site disaster recovery. For us, Nexsan provides the needed performance and density to help us operate at maximum efficiency while saving on the rental of rack space at our off-site facility. Because it worked so well in our own data center it made sense to expand it to others."

A member of the Flexible Storage Platform(tm), the Nexsan SASBeast is a high-capacity, high-performance, enterprise-class storage array system ideal for transactional applications that demand high I/O per second. With its storage density of 25.2TB offered in a 4U configuration, the Nexsan SASBeast has the ability to scale to hundreds of terabytes of capacity in a single rack. With 42 high-speed SAS drives, it is optimized for customers whose infrastructures support Microsoft Exchange, Oracle, SQL and other databases, as well as those that involve large file servers, virtual server environments or large amounts of small files. Equally important, Nexsan SASBeast includes Fibre Channel and iSCSI connectivity and allows customers such as Ecom to combine SAS, SSD and SATA drives within the same system to address multiple application requirements.

"High density and performance are key value propositions for mid-market customers like Ecom Atlantic," said Victoria Grey, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Nexsan. "This is true as much for primary storage as it is for secondary storage and disaster recovery. Built to perform in virtual environments, Nexsan's Flexible Storage Platform also delivers the enterprise-class features today's customers require for optimal efficiency in every application."

About Ecom Atlantic, Inc.
With over 150 years of market experience, Ecom Atlantic is a respected leader within the soft commodities industry. Its global operations rely on extensive knowledge and experience in supply chain improvement, risk management, and client-focused distribution to create a valuable and profitable environment for their suppliers, customers, shareholders, and employees.

About Nexsan
Nexsan(r) is a leading independent provider of disk-based storage systems purpose-built and priced for the mid-market, offering industry-leading reliability, space and power efficiency. Nexsan storage systems provide scalability, integrity and security for growing volumes of unstructured data and are ideal for virtual storage, data protection, secure online archiving, bulk and cloud storage applications. Overcoming the challenges of traditional storage, Nexsan delivers a different kind of storage experience with easy-to-use, efficient and enterprise-class solutions that reduce the complexity and cost of storage. Nexsan delivers its storage systems through a select global partner ecosystem of solution providers, OEMs and system integrators. Nexsan is based in Thousand Oaks, Calif. For more information, visit www.nexsan.com.

SOURCE: Ecom Atlantic, Inc.