Leaflet

2 © 2013 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. EDCS-1263077
“When it comes to data
center virtualization,
Cisco UCS hits the ball
out of the park. Overall
the Cisco UCS solution
provided us with greater
scalability and flexibility
as well as the ability to
become more innovative
in developing and
providing infrastructure
solutions that offer
superior value.”
— Michael Broyles
Systems Engineer
MPI Research
In addition to the need for large-scale computing resources, MPI Research requires
processing agility to help its clients speed new product development and ultimately time
to market. New studies or tests must begin within days, not months, and this requires
provisioning servers, storage, and network resources to accommodate rapid fluctuations
in demand. Schedules must be adjusted readily, and results delivered quickly.
Security and data redundancy are also major concerns. “MPI Research is in the data
business; we must safeguard our clients’ intellectual property that may lead to the next
life-saving drug, chemical, or medical device, as well as comply with the data integrity
regulatory requirements of agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA),”
says Mark Malloy, head of IT at MPI Research.
“We need 99.999 percent availability, high performance, and extreme flexibility. Our list
of technology requirements is long,” says Michael Broyles, systems engineer for MPI
Research. “We wanted an end-to-end network and data center solution to support our
stringent requirements.”
Solution
After evaluating several vendors, MPI Research chose a Cisco network, implementing
it from top to bottom across the company’s two data centers. “When we conducted a
side-by-side comparison, every person on our technical team agreed that the Cisco
solution best met our business needs,” says Frank Misak, network engineer at MPI
Research. Unique advantages were the proven reliability and performance of Cisco
solutions and superb technical support, as well as reliability, built-in redundancy, and
end-to-end functionality including voice telephony.
As part of its efforts to transform its data center and network infrastructure, MPI Research
embarked on a comprehensive project to renew its aging virtualization technologies and
update server hardware. For years, virtualization has been an important feature of company
operations. Instead of procuring and provisioning physical servers, which can take six to
eight weeks and delay studies, MPI Research found it was far more efficient to deploy
virtual servers and required resources (databases, storage, and network bandwidth) from
a secure, private cloud, drawing from shared technologies in the company’s two data
centers. The initial virtualization project paid for itself in eight months, but the company
wanted to do more.
As the foundation for its virtualized, next-generation data centers, the company chose
the Cisco Unified Computing System™ (UCS™), which unifies network, compute, storage
access, and virtualization into a single, cohesive system. After investigating the high-
performance capabilities of Cisco® UCS servers, MPI Research purchased 15 Cisco UCS
C200 series high-density, rack-mount servers, 9 Cisco UCS B200 M2 Blade Servers,
and 7 Cisco UCS B230 M1 Blade Servers, all connected through a high-capacity
Cisco Nexus® switching environment that also leverages 4 Cisco UCS 6140XP Fabric
Interconnects. “By leveraging the Cisco UCS design concepts and vast integration of
hardware and software technologies, we were able to reap significant savings in areas
such as power consumption, reduced licensing costs and a dramatic reduction in the
number of sockets in use,” says Broyles.