About Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS)
Founded in December 2003, the Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) has been developing a tradition of excellence in education, research, and community service. DUHS has educated and trained more than 8,000 students and residents from 20 academic institutions.
The Dow University of Health Sciences has since its inception been focused on community services - to provide preventive and diagnostic treatment, along with rehabilitation facilities for community health care, especially for the underprivileged.
Source: https://www.duhs.edu.pk/
DUHS's Challenges
DUHS has five different sites in total and was previously running VMware vSAN-ready nodes with VMWare HCI Solutions - including Compute and Storage Virtualization on each site as network Virtualization, Backup, and DR features were not offered to them previously.
They have a variety of operations running on each site including HIMS, PACS, Databases and Application Clusters, Active Directory, Exchange, and File Servers to name a few.
The solutions offered by VMware had storage and Computer Virtualization with a standard licensed version however many of the Enterprise features were missing which caused performance bottlenecks and Data Security issues. The customer also has to manage the network separately on each site.
As VMware does not offer any Backup Solutions, this presented another challenge for the customer on each site and they were compelled to take application-layer manual backups of critical VMs.
The following were the main requirements of the customer:
- Single Console management, covering all aspects including Compute, Storage, and Networking Tier of each Site.
- Enterprise Grade features to enhance Performance, Data Security, and reduce complexity by automation of DRS, Distributed Switch, Data Encryption, etc.
- Onsite Backups and Offsite DR of the VMs for maximum Data Protection.
- Network Virtualization with Micro-Segmentation for East-West Traffic Protection and Network Visualization for complete visibility of the VM Network.
- Local 24/7 support availability of OEM for timely resolution of issues.
Sangfor Solution for DUHS
Sangfor has offered its full HCI software suite - including aSV (Hypervisor), aSAN (Storage Virtualization), aNET (Network Virtualization), and Disaster Recovery Solutions.
For the hardware part, Sangfor being hardware-agnostic allows the customer to use their existing Dell Servers to install and run Sangfor HCI.
Key Value Propositions
- Sangfor being hardware-agnostic provides the customer leverage to use any x86 Hardware Platform of their choice or even to reuse their existing hardware. Which also mitigates the Hardware locking scenario for the customer.
- Sangfor provides built-in policy-based Backup Solutions with the capacity to store backup sets on any external SAN or NAS without the need to purchase any third-party solution or deploy any separate appliance. The CDP Solution is also integrated with a 1 Sec roll-back capability for critical VMs.
- Sangfor provides integrated one-window operation through SCP in terms of multi-site management by consolidating Compute, Storage, Network, Backup, and DR Operations within a single window frame.
- Sangfor Network Virtualization provides customers with complete VM network visibility, Micro-segmentation for East-West traffic isolation, and Drawable Network Topology for easier designing and implementation of networks.
- Sangfor provides built-in DR solutions with complete DR automation - such as VM Start-Up Sequencing, VM IP Change, Data Compression, etc.
- Sangfor provides customers with an Enterprise Grade Licensing model - including key features such as DRS, HotAdd, Tiering, Caching, VXLAN, Micro-segmentation, NFV Integration, CDP, etc.
- Sangfor provides vendor-local support for POC, installation, and after-sales service.
