Storage Woes on the Mend (
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Diagnostic tool maker Cholestech engaged solution provider to Adeara to improve its storage systems.Cholestech makes testing instruments designed to help prevent chronic diseases, so the company knows the importance of early diagnosis and prevention. When it came to the health of its IT infrastructure, Cholestech decided to apply the same approach.
Last year, Cholestech embarked on a three-year IT implementation to overhaul its SAS (server-attached storage) architecture, which was no longer meeting its expansion needs and was difficult to manage.
Cholestech, a $70 million company located in Hayward, Calif., contracted IT solution provider Adeara, of Sunnyvale, Calif., to design and implement an Axiom 500 storage and server virtualization solution from Pillar Data Systems. The solution would streamline resources and allow for cost-effective expansion and ease of manageability.
"We put a plan together for Cholestech, and they were happy with our initial and long-term costs, and also the flexible architecture of the Axiom 500," said Bob Reny, senior account manager with Adeara, a long-time Pillar partner.
When Director of IT Brent Siler joined Cholestech in 2005, he said that one of his first tasks was to look strategically at the company's IT requirements and infrastructure, consolidate processes, and draw up a three-to-five-year technology road map. But at the time, he didn't know that in working with Pillar, he would be introduced to a technology ally—Adeara—that would become invaluable in helping to bring Cholestech's IT vision into focus.
"We now have a storage solution that's nimble and can change as our needs change," Siler said.
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Working side by side with Adeara, Cholestech has been busy identifying solutions to support the company's current needs while allowing the flexibility to expand as the company grows.
Cholestech's business revolves around two diagnostic systems. The Cholestech LDX uses a small drop of blood to test for such conditions as diabetes and heart disease, while the GDX system is used for monitoring diabetes patients.
Just the facts
Upon joining Cholestech, Siler conducted a 90-day IT assessment that led him to conclude the company's SAS architecture was limited, expensive to expand and difficult to manage. "We had enough storage capacity for what we were doing. We were in good shape, but we wanted to be in great shape," he said.
At the time, Cholestech had 27 stand-alone servers with about 3TB of DAS (direct-attached storage). The servers ran a number of business applications such as Microsoft Exchange, Project and SharePoint, custom-built software, file and print, payroll, and document management—all of which served the company's 220 employees.
Siler said he knew that overhauling some of the company's IT infrastructure was necessary so it could support the biotechnology company's goal to become a leading worldwide provider of tools and information to health care professionals and consumers to assess risk and monitor therapy for chronic diseases.
The IT department's assessment made several things clear: Cholestech's IT road map going forward would have to address infrastructure, ERP (enterprise resource planning) and desktop and user computing.
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"When we met with Cholestech, they had a big server environment where disk space was underutilized," said Scott Jensen, account executive at Pillar Data Systems, in San Jose, Calif. "The company was looking for a cost-effective storage solution that offered state-of-the-art features and the ability to pool storage."
While Pillar had attempted to meet with Cholestech in the past, it wasn't until the company's new director of IT phoned Jensen in February 2006 that the vendor was given the opportunity to introduce its storage technology. "We met with a couple of gentlemen from IT and went through a few sales cycles in order to understand the company's needs," Jensen said.
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