Data Center Consolidation for Defense Unit

The Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) recently completed a data center consolidation that reduced its network from 18 facilities to just two. The consolidation, which is profiled at Enterprise Storage Forum (link via John Rath), used VMware and Network Appliance's Virtual File Manager technology to simplify the data migrations as it consolidated servers at DCMA data centers in Boston and Carson, Calif.

The DCMA is the Department of Defense's contract manager, overseeing 300,000 contracts worth $850 billion. Its consolidation gradually reduced the number of new servers purchased annually from 200 to about 20. But the process was not without challenges. The project created network latency issues, since the two remaining data centers were further apart than facilities in the larger network. With some users more than 1,200 miles apart, the latency began affecting replication and file sharing, delaying traffic and causing resends. DMCA solved the problem with WAN optimization appliances from Riverbed Technology.