OVERVIEW
Panasas, Inc. develops cluster storage solutions that help companies accelerate the
speed and accuracy of their business decisions, leading to real world breakthroughs
that improve people's lives. They enable customers to maximize the benefits of
Linux clusters by breaking down the storage bottleneck created by legacy network
storage technologies. Panasas has become the established leader in clustered storage
for Linux by providing excellent performance and manageability in a system that
seamlessly integrates into existing customer environments.
The company’s success is based on delivering a product with exceptional
performance and manageability to customers as quickly as possible. As their
business grew, they needed a way to shorten product development times and to
improve the scope and speed of their quality assurance (QA) testing. Additionally,
the company’s developers and testers needed secure remote access to shared lab
facilities in California, Pennsylvania, Texas and India.
CHALLENGE
To shorten product development time, increase efficiency of QA process, improve
quality, and support more devices without increasing staff
Global expansion presented several challenges to the company’s product
development and testing process. Panasas needed an efficient, functional and
cost-effective way to enhance their QA process and to shorten their product
development cycle. Their development and testing environment grew from 150
servers to 400 servers and also grew from 400 Panasas StorageBlades™ to 1,200
StorageBlades, all of which needed to be accessed remotely within the development
and testing infrastructure. Panasas needed to support this growing environment
without increasing staff. They also wanted to develop 10,000 new QA tests and have
these tests run automatically, further ensuring the high quality products and services
their customers expected.
In addition, they wanted to reduce overall product development cycles and needed to
support their geographically dispersed developers and testers.
PROFILE
Company
Panasas, Inc.
Type of business
Clustered Storage for Linux
Corporate headquarters
Fremont, CA
Web site
www.panasas.com
Applications
Research and Development
Automation and Access
“With out-of-band management tools from
Avocent, we have reduced our
development times by automating our test
process. We just push a button and the
tests take off.“
Lloyd Santy
Director of Test Engineering
Panasas, Inc.
CASE STUDY – Research and Development
Panasas Increases Quality and Develops Products
Faster with Out-of-Band Management Tools
SOLUTION
Out-of-band management tools by Avocent
Out-of-band management tools by Avocent allowed Panasas to consolidate the
remote administration of three testing facilities, one in Fremont, California, one in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the other in Houston, Texas. Out-of-band management
tools enabled the developers to test their code in the automated facility before
sending the code to QA. This allowed developers to catch and fix bugs early,
preventing expensive and time-consuming corrections down the line. In addition,
the QA group was able to automate their testing and consequently had more time to
develop and write tests (50 percent more).
A larger test facility is now supported with more than twice as many servers (400)
and runs 50 percent more tests with no additional staff. Out-of-band management
tools by Avocent provided the solutions necessary to enable Panasas to continue to
offer high quality products and services crucial to business survival in the growing
cluster storage market
IMPLEMENTATION
Out-of-band management tools provide automation, speed and secure remote access
Panasas implemented an out-of-band infrastructure using Cyclades®-TS terminal servers
to provide secure out-of-band access to both their blade-based Panasas ActiveScale
Storage Cluster™ and associated servers. Panasas has servers running many different
operating systems including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, AIX, IRIX, Tru64, Mac OS, and
Microsoft Windows. Cyclades-TS terminal servers have the flexibility to support all these
operating systems.
In their testing lab, Cyclades-TS terminal servers were connected to every device,
allowing secure access, control and monitoring of each blade server. Also by automating
their testing process, the QA group was free to write and develop more automated tests.
"The testing now runs automatically, 24 hours a day," remarked Lloyd Santy. "We can
now run more tests in less time. Debugging is much easier. We just go back through the
console logs and find out what happened, when it happened, and why it happened.
Without this, we would have spent much more time debugging our system," said Santy.
Moreover, secure out-of-band access has helped Panasas employ skilled developers and
testers from all over the world. "We can attract and hire from anywhere," said Santy. "We
have test facilities in California, Pennsylvania and Texas." Santy continued, "Any engineer
anywhere in the world can have secure access to our test facilities. Your out-of-band
management products are easy to use, access and operate."
ABOUT AVOCENT
Avocent Corporation is the leading supplier of connectivity solutions for enterprise data
centers, service providers and financial institutions worldwide. Branded products include
switching, extension, intelligent platform management interface (IPMI), remote access
and video display solutions. Additional information is available at www.avocent.com.
RESULTS
• Reduced each QA testing cycle by 50%,
allowing faster development times
• Boosted QA by adding over 10,000
new tests
• Supported global 24/7 product development
and testing to further reduce development
time and shorten time to market
“Not only has the Avocent solution
improved our test process and quality,
their systems are easy to use and
operate.“
Lloyd Santy
Director of Test Engineering
Panasas, Inc.
Corporate Headquarters
4991 Corporate Drive, Huntsville, AL 35805
TEL 866.277.1924 FAX 256.430.4030
www.avocent.com
Avocent, the Avocent logo, The Power of Being There and Cyclades are
trademarks or registered trademarks of Avocent Corporation or its affiliates. All
other marks are the property of their respective owners.
Copyright © 2006. Avocent Corporation. All rights reserved.
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