When the European arm of global pharmaceutical group Otsuka found that their replication and disaster recovery policies required re-configuring, they looked to storage specialists Krome Technologies to optimise the performance of their Dell EqualLogic and VMware virtualised environment.
Otsuka Group began in 1921 when Mr Busaburo Otsuka founded Otsuka’s first factory manufacturing chemical raw materials in Naruto, Tokushima Prefecture, Japan. Today, Otsuka has evolved into a global healthcare business operating in 25 countries and regions worldwide with over 42,000 employees producing pharmaceutical medicines, medical devices and diagnostics in addition to manufacturing nutraceuticals and soy products, helping people to maintain their health and well-being.
The Requirement
Having previously invested in a Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN and VMware virtual estate, Otsuka were experiencing instability issues and on-going service interruptions which were impacting Otsuka’s UK office and European sites, so the decision was made to seek the services of an alternative specialist consultancy partner for advice.
Following a visit to the Krome Technologies website, it was determined that as Dell Premier and VMware Enterprise Partners, Krome had the relevant expertise required in order to assist in resolving the issues Otsuka were experiencing.
Having spoken extensively with Otsuka’s Head of European IT Services and his team in order to understand the complications, Krome conducted an audit of the Otsuka environment and determined that the instability issues were due to the Dell EqualLogic solution being configured incorrectly. Krome were contracted by Otsuka to conduct the reparation work that was required, in order to rectify the problems that had caused the solution to fail.
Krome began the gradual process of stabilising the system and establishing the standard required to ensure peak levels of performance. Thanks to the success of the initial project; Krome continued to work in partnership with the team at Otsuka on their Storage and VMware infrastructure; subsequently rebuilding the environment to bring the whole estate up to date, with the latest version of VMware and Dell EqualLogic firmware.
Sharing knowledge and expertise about storage and virtualisation between Krome’s technical team and Otsuka’s IT department based in the UK, lead to the establishment of a strong working relationship, which proved so successful, that Otsuka made the decision to sign up to a support contract for Krome to maintain their entire estate.
With a trusted partnership established between the two organisations, Otsuka feel confident that their environment is in safe hands, The Head of European IT Services summarises:
“Krome Technologies are a superior technical consultancy partner; our relationship has gone from strength to strength. From the moment we engaged with them we received excellent service levels; their team are incredibly efficient and knowledgeable. We have worked collaboratively on a number of projects and I now consider them as an extension of my team.” Head of European IT Services, Otsuka.
