C A S E S T U D YSchindlerGroupQLogic 6140 Router ElevatesEnterprise ApplicationDeploymentChallengeFind a way to lower the cost and speed up the testing ofnew enterprise software in a SAN environment.SolutionThe QLogic® SANbox® 6140 Intelligent Storage Routerprovides inexpensive server access to a SAN using iSCSIover existing Ethernet cabling. The test SAN consists ofa 1TB Hitachi Data Systems® Thunder 9500™ V SeriesModular Storage Array and a Hewlett-Packard® ProLiant®DL360 server running Red Hat® Enterprise Linux®ResultBy using the QLogic SANbox 6140 Intelligent StorageRouter, the time to conduct proof-of-concept testsdropped from over a week to a day and a half. Theimproved productivity allowed IT staff to use personnelresources more effectively. New applications can bedeployed to customers faster and with less impact onthe busy IT department“The QLogic SANbox 6140 Intelligent Storage Router gives us a rapid and cost-ef-fective way to test new enterprise applications in a SAN environment, which helpsus get new software applications to our users faster.”—Ed Torres, Data Center Manager, The Schindler GroupFollowing the introduction of their first electric elevator in Lucerne, Switzerland,in 1890, and with a company history dating all the way back to 1874, theSchindler Group today is one of the oldest and most successful providers oftransportation systems, elevators, and escalators in the entire world.And like every large business in the world today, IT management has becomean essential component to maintaining the company’s competitive edge.Maximizing the efficiency of 3,000 mobile employees across the United Statesis just one of the ways the Schindler Group can stay ahead of the game. AsEd Torres, data center manager for North American operations, noted, “Newapplications need to work reliably when we deploy them to our maintenancetechnicians and field sales representatives. Otherwise, we will not see theproductivity benefits. That requires a lot of testing on our part, which can beexpensive and time-consuming.”Torres recently sought to cut the cost of testing while also reducing the timespent testing so applications could be deployed to the field even faster. “Ourproof-of-concept test environment was composed of expensive Brocade®SilkWorm® switches with Fibre Channel connections between the servers andthe SAN,” he said. “But configuration complexity caused testing to take weeksand consume the time of key IT staff members. We needed to find a better,faster way to accelerate the deployment of new applications.”Schindler moves to QLogic routerIt was clear to Torres that simplifying the test environment was the place tobegin. “We knew that moving from Fibre Channel to iSCSI would bring downconnectivity costs as well as reduce the labor involved in configuring the testenvironment,” Torres said.After reviewing alternative iSCSI SAN routers, Torres decided to evaluate theQLogic SANbox 6140 Intelligent Storage Router. “It looked like the QLogicrouter configuration wizard would simplify SAN management and save stafftime,” Torres said. “We were also impressed by the responsiveness of QLogicin answering our questions.”