Business issues
Managing Data SITA is the world’s leading provider of global information and telecommunications solutions to the aviation industry. Providing to customers managed voice and data services, application and end-to-end desktop and network services. Data availability and protection were key concerns as SITA began planning the move of its data center in response to the expiration of its facility lease. Additionally, the company decided to relocate its mainframe and open systems environment, network hardware and software applications to a co-location site at Heathrow to facilitate future growth plans.

Solutions
StorageTek professional services employees spent a considerable amount of time upfront to plan for the smooth migration of SITA’s data center. The process began with the completion of an IT hardware discovery and inventory stage along with data center software application dependencies. This information guided StorageTek project managers in the creation of service implementation strategies to meet SITA’s availability, deadline and budgetary requirements. After arriving at a consensus on the strategies, tactical action plans were developed to complete the data center move. In addition, SITA was also able to utilize StorageTek’s Virtual Storage Manager system to achieve an 80 percent consolidation of data for its tape cartridges.

Business benefits
• Completed data center migration on time and under budget • StorageTek-designed layout of new data center uses 50 percent less floor space than previous location • Virtual Storage Manager system reduced tape cartridge capacity requirements and usage by over 80 percent