Mainfreight keeps data in motion
Auckland-based Mainfreight is set to undergo an IT transformation with major projects, including the building of a "greenfield" datacentre and migrating from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2005, scheduled for the first half of the year.
The freight forwarding and logistics company employs over 3,000 staff in 29 branches throughout New Zealand and Australia. It currently operates two datacentres on one physical site in Auckland, and runs all of its core applications out of New Zealand. In addition, Mainfreight will rollout VMware's ESX Server in conjunction with its SQL migration.
Anthony Barrett, Mainfreight Australasia IT manager, said that the location of the new (offsite) datacentre is yet to be finalised, but it made sense to commit to other projects at the same time it was commissioned.
"It's easier to do everything [for example the SQL upgrade] as part of the datacentre migration. For example, we want to move on the current supported version of SQL, and are looking for performance gains [in the new version]. It's a good time do it now," he said.
The datacentre migration also presented Mainfreight with an opportunity to update its hardware. It had been an IBM shop, he said, before moving to HP.
"If you have one vendor, and if they are competent then there is no potential for issues," Barrett told ZDNet Australia on the sidelines of HP StorageWorks.07 in Vietnam recently.
"Things are compliant and work together, and [if] it all goes pear-shaped you only have one call to make. You don't have to go to IBM for this and someone else for that."
Barrett would not provide specifics nor reveal the amount spent but purhases include a HP Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA) 6000 and four ProLiant DL580 servers.
He believes the EVA's standout feature is the management capabilities. "It fits in with what we do and the ease of ongoing management is the biggest benefit."
Barrett is also focused on disaster recovery, a burning issue for firms with disparate locations such as Mainfreight. Business continuity and being able to minimise downtime after a disaster was one of the reasons behind the company's adoption of VMware's ESX server.
Unlike others who implemented VMware to cut the number of physical servers, Barrett is more interested in using virtualisation capabilities to assist in disaster recovery. "Yes, we will drop servers, but virtualisation enables business continuity. We can replicate continuous access between sites," he said.
Scott Mckenzie travelled to StorageWorks.07 in Vietnam as a guest of HP.