HPE ConvergedSystem 700 meet the virtualization, hybrid cloud and workplace productivity needs of REDF providing a high performance scalable solution.

Case Study

IntroductionThe Real Estate Development Fund (REDF) is a specialised credit institution in Saudi Arabia that finances housing projects in the Kingdom and allows citizens to obtain finance to own a house. Established in 1974 as part of an initiative to raise the percent-age of residential ownership and achieve greater welfare and economic and social stability for all citizens, REDF currently has millions of clients and has disbursed several hundred billions worth of housing finance.

The total loans disbursed by the REDF since

its inception until the end of 2006 amount-ed to SR134.1 billion (S35.7billion). Between 2011 and 2014, the volume of REDF loans had risen by 65% from SR79billion ($21.1-billion) to SR130billion ($34.7billion). Earlier this year (2017) the Saudi government announced a new plan to increase the volume of investment in residential and finance products by about SR119.5 billion contributing to about SR562 billion as revenues on the Kingdom's economy and generate about 47,820 thousand jobs directly and indirectly.

Objective

Approach

Increase the Datacenter performance.Reduce application latency.Minimize the downtime.Reduce the management, power and cooling cost.Shift the whole Datacenter applications from physical to Virtual Environment.

Migrate the system from the old Datacenter to the brand new HPE ConvergedSystem 700.

IT MattersImproved stability and Faster performance.Increased number of processes performed at the same time.Power consumption costs reduced by more than 60%.

REDF teams with Canadian ITS and HPE to transform the way they serve their customers in KSA.

With over 40 branches spread across Saudi Arabia and millions of customer data and transactions worth several billion riyals in an year, it was critical for REDF to maintain a fully functional, saleable and modernized IT infrastructure.

“Being one of the premier institutions in Saudi Arabia catering to the financing of new housing projects we had to deal with an entire eco system consisting of our direct clients, civic o�icials, contractors, suppliers etc.. With the government announcing new schemes in line with the goals of the Saudi Vision 2030 and the National Transition Program 2020, it was very important for us to have the ability to scale up our operations as required,” says Mr. Hashim al Ghamdi, Infrastructure Manager at REDF.

One of the most important factors in achieving this capacity was to ramp up the IT system. “It was very important for us to leverage the data to deliver engaging experiences to customers. The key to success for any business is the speed and deficiency of its data storage.” he adds.

However, the existing systems at REDF were ageing, extremely power intensive and were unable to scale up as per requirements. The servers and the production storage facilities at REDF had run out of their guarantee period, each application was using its own physical server and running a di�erent operating system, and the backups were not

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The Challenge

– Hashim al Ghamdi, Infrastructure Manager, The Real Estate Development Fund (REDF)

“With the government announcing new schemes in line with the goals of the Saudi Vision 2030 and the National Transition Program 2020, it was very important for us to have the ability to scale up our operations as required."

“We had to shift the whole DataCenter application from physical to virtual environment.”– Hashim al Ghamdi, Infrastructure Manager, The Real Estate Development Fund (REDF)

optimized. Among the major stumbling blocks were a limitations of physical space storage latency and extremely slow DC network connectivity. It was also critical for REDF to minimize the downtime and increase the e�ectiveness by reducing the management, power and cooling cost.

The challenge was to not just find the right solution but also the right partner to implement that solution. “We had to shift the whole DC application from physical to virtual environment. Our aim was to identify the right partner who had an in-depth under-standing of the ecosystem, professionalism and the required skillset and expertise to match our requirements,” said Mr. al Ghamdi.

According to him the task ahead was quite challenging. “With multiple divisions and networks and data centres running critical data, our existing system was consuming way too much power and allowed us no flexibility to scale up the infrastructure that had about 80 to 90 servers powering the operations” added Mr. al Ghamdi.

A thorough scrutiny of applicants via a tendering process resulted in REDF deciding to work with the Canadian - ITS, a Saudi based firm that provides a wide range of technical services including the design, implementation and management of IT infrastructures for companies.

This was however not the first time REDF was working with Canadian ITS. The Saudi based IT solutions provider has implement-ed several IT related projects for the client earlier.

As Mr. Ahmed Bedair, Country Manager of Canadian ITS, points out, “Canadian ITS provides a wide range of technical services including the design, implementation and management of IT infrastructures for companies. In this specific project what convinced REDF to work with us was the level of support that we o�ered throughout the project, the transparency and trust between our technical teams, and, of course, a price that corresponded to the budget.”

REDF requirement was to deploy a high performing scalable solution which can comfortably serve their application needs for at least 5 years. “The customer was looking for a cost e�ective, yet powerful solution that o�ered high end storage and a network that had the capacity to handle all of its servers and applications.”

Canadian ITS then suggested the option to migrate the system from the old DC to the brand new HPE ConvergedSystem 700 (CS700) platform. "The solution was perfectly matching what the customer was looking for," says Mr. Bedair from Canadian ITS.

The Approach

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The HPE CS700 is a purpose-built, pre-configured solution optimized to meet the virtualization, hybrid cloud and workplace productivity needs of business-es. It’s open, flexible and saleable and is built with a fundamental purpose of creating speed and simplicity, thanks to its

factory-integrated server, storage, networking, and management components.

Among the new features are the HPE FlexFabric 5940, which is optimized for higher-performance server connectivity, convergence of Ethernet and storage tra�ic, the capability to handle virtual environments, and low latency. HPE has also added support for HPE OneView 3.0 -- the infrastructure automation engine on CS700 that helps simplify operations, increasing the speed of IT delivery for new applications and services.

Advantages: HPE CS700

Soon after the deployment of HPE CS 700 took place, almost 100 physical servers and 2 storages where successfully replaced. Canadian-ITS and HPE sta� worked together following the latest best practices to ensure redundancy and stability to the system and grant a complete customer satisfaction.

The implementation “was very smooth. The migration of data went on as scheduled and we were very satisfied with the timely completion of the project and with the flexibility and the service level provided by Canadian ITS,” adds Mr. al Ghamdi, Infrastructure Manager of REDF.

The Implementation

“ The implementation was very smooth. The migration of data went on as scheduled and we were very satisfied with the timely completion of the project and with the flexibility and the service level provided by Canadian ITS”– Hashim al Ghamdi, Infrastructure Manager, The Real Estate Development Fund (REDF)

But for REDF the aftersales support was as important as the implementation of the project itself and “…Compared to other proposals the one by HPE and Canadian ITS o�ered more value. We received additional controllers, more cores per CPU and we also

For over a decade, the company has been a leader in the industry assisting private and public sectors, international enterprises by addressing their needs to solve business problems relating to information technology.

Canadian ITS provides solutions for:1. Cloud Systems2. Converged Systems3. Backup4. Archiving5. Email6. Networking7. VDI Solutions8. Disaster Recovery9. Security and Monitoring10. Infrastructure Cabling11. Help Desk

got consultation services and post deploy-ment support services for one year as part of the package,” says Mr. al Ghamdi.“Today, we are very satisfied with the overall result. The new system is faster, more stable, can perform more processes and the power consumption has been reduced by more than 60%.”

After the Deployment

With headquarter in Canada, back o�ice in Egypt, operations in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region, Canadian ITS is an innovative company that is also one of the fastest growing companies which o�ers IT solutions.

Canadian Information Technology Solutions, Inc. was originally founded in 2006 in Quebec, Canada Partnering with leaders of IT vendors such as HPE, HP, VMware, Microsoft, GFI, Veeam and others to o�er businesses software, hardware and solutions to help enable organizations around the world to conduct better and more e�icient business practices.

After the company developed in Canada then branched out to Saudi Arabia in 2007, and in 2014, a franchise agreement with Bayanat Sudair for Telecom and Information Technology Co. has been established as a part of an agreement to be operated and managed by the policies and standards of Canadian ITS.

Canadian ITS

“The new system is faster, more stable, can perform more processes and the power consumption has been reduced by more than 60%”– Hashim al Ghamdi, Infrastructure Manager, The Real Estate Development Fund (REDF)

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Canadian ITS o�ice:Bayanat Sudair for Telecom and IT CO.7488 Al Hawwari, Al Malaz2nd Floor O�ice 6Riyadh 12831-2202, Unit 10Saudi ArabiaTel: +966-11-478-2810Fax: +966-11-476-3490