When Cisco Called FTI Answered

When Cisco Systems needed a fast, reliable solution to rapidly increasing data storage needs, they turned to Foundation Technologies, Inc. (FTI), to provide them with that solution. Not only did Cisco need a company to provide them with the hardware and software needed to increase their storage capacity and efficiency, but they also needed that company completely dedicated to their needs in all aspects of that project. This dedication and attention to detail is where FTI proved its strengths.

Cisco’s top management called upon FTI based on their proven track record of managing large projects for Cisco and other companies. These projects had primarily dealt with the complete replacement and renewal of critical IT components. In this case, however, Cisco needed an improvement to its existing storage infrastructure. In specific, engineers needing access to IOS versions for customer equipment were running into bottlenecks when trying to access stored data.

The dual processor system Cisco was using was inadequate for their needs. Too many users were trying to access the systems at the same time, and both end-users (customers) and Cisco engineers were experiencing slower than necessary reaction time when trying to access data. Due to the sheer amount of transactions and operations being conducted on a regular basis at Cisco, even a few minutes of down-time or slowed-reaction time resulted in substantial financial losses. Cisco simply could not afford to be hampered by these problems, and turned to FTI in order to provide them with a much-needed solution.

FTI partnered with Sun Microsystems in order to provide Cisco with their much needed storage solution. FTI provided Cisco with a Sun Server which could handle substantially more data and throughput. The new solution utilized two clustered servers that were equipped with ten processors instead of two. EMP provided the hardware needed for the data storage.