Case Studies > Miscellaneous

IT Paradise Found—Again

Using a System i and BladeCenter solution, Amelia Island Plantation continues its consolidation

Up Close

CUSTOMER:	Amelia Island Plantation
HEADQUARTERS:	Amelia Island, Fla.
BUSINESS:	Hospitality, resort and property management
HARDWARE:	An IBM System i5 520, an IBM BladeCenter with 10 blades and an IBM System Storage Ultrium 3 tape drive
SOFTWARE:	Oracle JD Edwards and Kronos
CHALLENGE:	Upgrading an aging iSeries platform and further consolidating its PC environment
SOLUTION:	Employing the iSCSI capabilities of the IBM BladeCenter to use the System i5 520 for consolidated storage, ease of management and simpler disaster recovery

Longtime readers of this magazine may recall an article on the consolidation efforts of Amelia Island Plantation ("IT Paradise on Earth," May 2003). At that time, the organization had consolidated 20-plus stand-alone PC servers to 10 IBM* System x* servers connected to its IBM iSeries* 820 via several System x adapters. The results had been nothing but positive, and let the organization save 9 percent in total cost of ownership over a revamped, external-only PC-server environment.

Of course, times have changed since then, and so has technology. System x adapters are still available - and useful - but IBM BladeCenter* servers are becoming an increasingly viable alternative to any type of PC server - whether standalone or internally or externally attached. Part of what makes them so attractive is the ease of management, with the diskless blades using the System i* onboard storage as their data repository. Using this centralized method of management and storage - the latter made possible thanks to the iSCSI capabilities of the BladeCenter chassis - "has helped us consolidate even more than we had in the past," remarks Andy Cook, information systems director for this resort and residential community.

Not only that, but the organization has saved money by deploying a BladeCenter system with its new System i5* 520 server, not just in the form of hardware cost but also in terms of staffing. If the organization had gone with an actual storage-area network (SAN), it may have had to hire a SAN manager. Now, it can rely on its System i administrator to manage everything, including the blades and storage, from one location. "I was a little concerned about putting all of our eggs in one basket," Cook says, "but now that everything is up and running, I'm pretty comfortable using our System i server as a SAN and a central management point."

An Easier Migration Path

I've been to Amelia Island, Fla., and I can attest to its natural beauty. The plantation wants it to stay that way, in keeping with its "in harmony with nature" credo. Early on, plantation developers kept issues such as the preservation of marshland, dune, grassland and savannah in mind. Every structure on the island, including private residences and public resorts, must conform to restrictions that help ensure they fit into their natural surroundings rather than detract from them.

The Amelia Island Plantation, whose core resort business is 75-percent group clients, manages this community, acting as a hospitality, resort, food-and-beverage and property-management business. Accommodations include more than 650 rooms and several one-, two- and three-bedroom villas. To keep its guests entertained, it also has four 18-hole championship golf courses, 23 fast-dry clay tennis courts, upscale shopping, several fine restaurants and 49,000 square feet of conference facilities.

It uses the 520, with its 3.4 TB of storage, as its main back-office machine, running a heavily modified version of the JD Edwards (now Oracle) suite of ERP applications and a time-and-attendance system from Kronos. It also relies on several other Microsoft* Windows* technology-based applications, including a property-management system that handles reservations, tee times and point-of-sale transactions; Microsoft Exchange 2003; SQL 2000 and Sharepoint as an intranet server.

Prior to moving to the 520, the plantation had been using the 820 and its attached System x servers as its primary computing platform. But as Cook points out, this IT environment had begun to grow a bit long in the tooth over the four years since we last profiled Amelia Island Plantation. "It was becoming a big performance failure," he says, noting that part of the issue when the organization had upgraded to the 820 was that a lot of older system hardware had simply been placed in the new machine without consideration for potential performance hits. "When you're putting old disk controllers, old disk drives, old cache, old memory into a newer box, you kind of negate the fact that you've upgraded," Cook says. "Sure, you get a little more performance, but certain things take a hit."

With the 820 overtaxed and due for an upgrade, including to its DASD, which Cook says was constrained, the organization decided to look at its options. To that end, it enlisted the assistance of two business partners - Mark L. Belcher & Associates (MLBA) and the Dynamix Group - to help it find a solution. Because of the resort's years of experience with System i solutions going back well before the 820, that platform was already on the table, and Dynamix assisted with its installation. The only question was how to best integrate Amelia Island's Windows technology-based applications into the new environment.

"MLBA had had some experience with the IBM BladeCenter system, so they were pushing that environment versus a System x environment," Cook recalls. "In addition, I had been reading some articles about it, and it seemed to make sense to have a core hardware chassis that's communicating with my System i server, and then have individual blades within that chassis. That way, if I need to swap out a blade, I can simply pop in a new one instead of having to pull a complete PC server and then purchase another. Because it seemed like an easier migration path, going with the BladeCenter solution just made more logical sense."

It also made clear financial sense. If the plantation had purchased stand-alone servers, its research suggested it may have faced a total cost of around $100,000, excluding the purchase of the 520. By going with the BladeCenter system, the organization figures it saved between $40,000 and $50,000. "I got some quotes from HP and Dell for stand-alone servers, and they came in much more expensive," Cook says. "In fact, the most expensive part of our upgrade was the memory on the System i server, but considering what we wanted to do, it was worth it."

"I can walk away from our facility and go to another environment and install parts of our entire system and, within hours, be operational again." -Andy Cook, information systems director, Amelia Island Plantation

Next page: >>