CSCO: BendBroadband Upgrades Data Storage to Improve Customer Service and Reduce Costs

BendBroadband, a privately owned, nationally recognized cable operator, has deployed a storage area network (SAN) based on Cisco® technology to improve customer service, reduce operating costs, and improve application performance. To address the performance, reliability, and scalability requirements of its growing business, the company upgraded its network-attached storage to a SAN based on Cisco storage network fabric switches.

Serving the fast-growing area of Bend, Oregon, BendBroadband was expanding beyond the limits of its old storage system. After researching the switch choices available, the cable operator selected Cisco MDS fabric switches because of reliability, support, compatibility with a wide range of storage devices, and a belief that Cisco is emerging as the market leader in storage networking technology. The new Cisco-based SAN has enabled the company to keep up with fast-paced growth, allowed them to expand their service offerings to business customers, and provided the capability for disaster recovery.

"Since we turned these switches on the performance has been astounding," said Bob McWhorter, network operations center manager at BendBroadband. "Our service times are less than a millisecond on disks located across the street."

As long-time users of command-line interfaces, BendBroadband's IT staff was also pleased with the ease-of-use of the Cisco switches. "The graphical user interface is really incredible," said Wade Holmes, network operations center (NOC) engineer for BendBroadband. "It's self-documenting. It doesn't let you make errors. You don't even have to install any software because it loads right off the switch. We were extremely impressed."

BendBroadband is also installing a Cisco MDS fabric switch in its auxiliary Network Operations Center located at a separate facility, to provide full data redundancy for the primary NOC and the capability for rapid disaster recovery. This ability helps to give BendBroadband's business and residential customers the confidence that the company can handle their current and future needs with complete assurance.

"With Cisco MDS fabric switches, small to midsize organizations can deploy cost-effective, high performance SANs that provide enterprise-class features such as non-disruptive firmware upgrades for high availability, extensive diagnostics for quick troubleshooting, and advanced management capabilities through Cisco Fabric Manager," said Rajeev Bhardwaj, director of product management, Data Center Business Unit at Cisco.

For further information about Cisco storage networking products and solutions, go to: www.cisco.com/go/storagenetworking