Xsigo Virtual I/O Provides Kroll 50 Percent More VM Throughput and Saves on Cost

Xsigo Systems, Inc., the leader in virtualized data center infrastructure, today announced that Kroll Factual Data, a division of Kroll, the world’s leading risk consulting company, has successfully deployed Xsigo virtual I/O in its virtualized data center. As a result, the firm increased the transaction capacity of its 700 Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines by 50 percent and gained six times more bandwidth per server at 50 percent less cost than alternative 10 gigabit Ethernet-based solutions.

“Our demand for IT capacity is exploding, and we needed an infrastructure solution that would let us do more right now, while giving us headroom to grow in the future,” said Galen Wiles, director of IT for Kroll Factual Data. “We looked at FCoE-based solutions and at 10 gigabit Ethernet, but felt that Xsigo’s solution best meets the combination of interoperability, performance, and value that we need. Bottom line, the Xsigo I/O Director saved us $15,000 per blade chassis while enabling 50 percent more capacity from our Hyper-V virtual machines.”

Kroll Factual Data deployed an advanced virtualized data center infrastructure solution consisting of a pair of Xsigo VP780 I/O Directors with 20Gb server interconnects, Dell blade servers, Microsoft Hyper-V software, Hitachi AMS 2500 storage arrays, and FalconStor storage virtualization software.

“We generate a tremendous amount of server-to-server traffic as data moves among our various proprietary applications, and that puts load on the network that can cause unpredictable performance,” said Galen. “With Xsigo, we eliminated those bottlenecks to help ensure a superior user experience for our clients.”

In a recent example, the firm resolved an I/O contention issue in just two hours with Xsigo virtual I/O, rather than the four to five days it would have taken to re-configure a physical network.

“Kroll Factual Data faced a business challenge that’s becoming increasingly common in virtualized data centers: how to ensure predictable application performance when data must traverse complex network paths,” said Bruce Fingles, Xsigo’s vice president of product management and alliances. “Xsigo flattens the network to reduce that complexity, and delivers four times the bandwidth of 10G Ethernet to help companies like Kroll Factual Data increase efficiency and get the optimum performance from their virtual machines.”