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CUSTOMER PROFILE
Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, Inc. (VSEA) is a leading producer of ion implantation equipment used in the manufacture of semiconductors. The company is dedicated to meeting the exacting demands of IC production and satisfying the ion implantation needs of IC manufacturers worldwide. With over 3,300 state-of-the-art high current, medium current, and high energy implanters installed throughout the world, Varian Semiconductor systems have implanted about 50 million wafers - more than all of its competitors combined.
CHALLENGE
Consistent corporate growth translates into consistent data growth and Varian Semiconductor's continued success had the IT organization struggling to manage a storage environment that had expanded to 20 terabytes. Varian Semiconductor's overburdened SAN required constant IT attention to maintain performance. To backup the environment, twenty media servers shared a large tape library that had been installed to provide superior performance and reliability but actually created significant instability. A single media server running out of system resources, for example, would often bring down all the tape drives in the middle of a backup. To add to the problem, backups that started on Friday nights often extended into production time on Monday and required constant monitoring throughout the weekend.
SOLUTION
Daymark Solutions' experienced professionals conducted an in-depth assessment of Varian Semiconductor's environment and concluded that the infrastructure implemented by another vendor was overly complex and incorrectly installed. The net result was an inherently fragile system that created more problems than it solved.
After taking the time to understand Varian Semiconductor's short- and long-term goals, Daymark peeled back the complexity to address the stability issues. The first step was to simplify the media server environment by properly reconfiguring the tape resources, which immediately stabilized the entire backup environment. Further improvements shrank the backup window dramatically, ensuring that VSEA can comfortably meet its backup goals, with near 100% success rates.
The new architecture also freed up 25% of existing device resources, decreasing the number of required licenses and dramatically reducing license and support costs.
To address the SAN issues, Daymark replaced the standalone SAN island with a multi-server, high performance, scalable Storage Area Network, enabling the introduction of a distributed file system to share the load across the enterprise. This improved performance and reduced the need for constant management, which in turn allowed the IT staff to direct its attention to other important projects.
In addition to resolving Varian Semiconductor's immediate problems, Daymark designed and implemented the new solution with an eye towards the future. Understanding Varian Semiconductor's strong desire to leverage a Data Lifecycle Management infrastructure at a later date, Daymark worked collaboratively with the company to evaluate multiple options, assisted in the selection of the most appropriate solution, and acted as an extension of VSEA's staff to insure a smooth rollout when the time came.
RESULTS
Within just two weeks of initiating the project, Varian Semiconductor began to achieve the results it desired. The complexity of the backup environment has been significantly reduced, making 100% successful completion rates the norm rather than the exception. The backup window has been reduced to just hours, and the IT organization was able to redeploy resources to other tasks.
Daymark has monitored and refined the technology post-deployment, and one year later the infrastructure continues to run flawlessly.