Success Story
Global Law Firm Makes
Case for Performance and
Availability with Microsoft
Exchange 2010 and NetApp
CUSTOMER PROFILE
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
Industry
Legal
The challenge
Manage exponential information
growth and how that information
is shared.
The solution
Upgrade to M
­ icrosoft® Exchange 2010
and Symantec™ Enterprise Vault™ and
enhance infrastructure with server,
storage, and network upgrades.
Benefits
• 7x24x365 availability and improved
archiving for e-mail
• 15% increase in performance of
Microsoft SQL Server
• Instituted four-hour SLA target for
disaster recovery
• Immediate restoration of lost or
corrupted mailboxes
Nixon Peabody LLP is recognized as a
“Global 100” law firm—one of the largest
in the world. The firm has approximately
700 attorneys collaborating across major
practice areas in 17 cities and areas, includ­
ing Boston, Chicago, London, Los Angeles,
New York, Paris, Rochester, San Francisco,
Shanghai, Silicon Valley, and Washington,
DC. Nixon Peabody’s size, diversity, and
advanced technological resources enable
it to offer comprehensive legal services
to individuals and organizations of all
sizes in local, state, national, and inter­
national matters.
THE CHALLENGE
Enhance performance of electronic
messaging tools
Information—correspondence, briefs, rulings,
research reports—fuels the practice of law.
A key success factor for Nixon Peabody is
managing how that information moves.
Peter Allen, director of IT operations at
Nixon Peabody LLP, explains: “Documents
are important to our business, but the
transportation of documents and general
communications is even more important.
Our attorneys rely on e-mail—often on
BlackBerries—to stay in touch with clients,
colleagues, opposing counsel, and the courts.
They have expectations for 7x24x365
availability and instantaneous delivery—and
no tolerance for slow response or downtime.”
In recent years, the firm’s infrastructure was
straining to meet the need. “It wasn’t a matter
of a tweak here and there,” Allen says. “When
it came to our messaging environment, we
started with a blank piece of paper.”
Optimize performance for key applications
There’s more to Nixon Peabody’s infrastruc­
ture than e-mail. Software applications from
a variety of third-party vendors help the firm
manage the lifecycle of legal information.
Nixon Peabody’s document management
system, which manages seven million
documents, is critical to day-to-day busi­
ness operations. ADERANT Expert provides
time and billing, practice management, and
other capabilities, while a long list of other
applications helps improve communication
and collaboration.
With a major e-mail upgrade in the works,
Allen had to watch his budget, but wanted to
make improvements in other areas. Many of
the firm’s business applications—including
the document management system and
ADERANT Expert—run on Microsoft SQL
Server database software. Allen needed a
way to increase the performance of SQL
Server without investing in more storage.
“Microsoft Exchange 2010 running
on NetApp storage and VMware gives
us one of the highest-performing
messaging architectures available.
With near-instantaneous communication,
7x24x365 availability, and better archiving,
our legal professionals can support their
clients better—and that’s always our
bottom line.”
Peter Allen
Director of IT Operations, Nixon Peabody LLP
Enhance business continuity capabilities
Protecting data from loss due to human error
or natural disaster is vital for the firm. A few
years ago, Nixon Peabody established a
secondary data center with a NetApp®
FAS3040 system in Columbus, Ohio, and
uses NetApp SnapMirror ® software to
replicate data from its primary data center
in Rochester, New York. The firm’s first goal
was to replicate all of its data to Columbus
to eliminate reliance on tape backups.
THE SOLUTION
Upgrade e-mail software to
Microsoft Exchange 2010
Nixon Peabody decided to build out a
dedicated e-mail environment and chose
a NetApp FAS3140 for e-mail storage in the
primary data center. Allen had been pleased
with the reliability and flexibility of the exist­
ing NetApp systems, so it was logical to stay
with NetApp.
After comparing Microsoft Exchange 2010
to the firm’s existing Exchange 2003, Nixon
Peabody decided to upgrade to achieve
enhanced performance and higher availabil­
ity. Allen learned that some enterprises were
opting to support Exchange 2010 with “just
a bunch of disks”—so-called JBOD—and no
RAID capability. He rejected that approach:
“JBOD seems too risky for us. We trust
NetApp’s reliability.”
Supporting the new e-mail system required
changes to the network. The firm has com­
mitted to 10-Gigabit Ethernet and installed
Cisco Nexus 5020 switches in the main data
center. In the near term, Nixon Peabody will
run its Exchange environment over 4-Gigabit
Fibre Channel, but in time Allen expects to
migrate to Fibre Channel over Ethernet.
Upgrade virtual infrastructure
To support its new e-mail and other key
applications, Nixon Peabody upgraded to
VMware® vSphere™ 4. The firm now runs
more than 280 VMware virtual machines
over NFS, supported by NetApp storage
and protected by SnapManager ® for
Virtual Infrastructure.
The Exchange 2010 Client Access Servers
and Hub Transport Servers run on virtual
machines, while three dedicated physical
servers host the mailboxes as Database
Availability Groups, or DAGs (Exchange
2010’s high-availability feature). The firm’s
BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, Microsoft
SQL Server 2005 and 2008, Microsoft
SharePoint® Server 2003 and 2007, and
all the legal and document management
applications are virtualized as well.
Nixon Peabody keeps three active copies of
the DAG locally and one at the DR site, for a
total of 24TB. The production e-mail archive
is about 12TB in size, with an additional
12TB copy at the DR site. Altogether, Nixon
Peabody’s mailbox information requires
more than 48TB of NetApp storage.
Allen singles out NetApp’s pivotal role in the
design of its storage infrastructure. “Nixon
Peabody uses a smorgasbord of storage
protocols,” he says. “NetApp gives us the
ability to pick the protocol and connectivity
type that fits each individual component.
That flexibility eliminated design constraints.”
Migrate e-mail archiving to Symantec
Enterprise Vault and NetApp SnapLock
After an extensive proof of concept, Nixon
Peabody upgraded its archival solution from
EMC EmailXtender to Symantec Enterprise
Vault. With the new Virtual Vault feature of
Enterprise Vault 8.5, much of the archive
resides on the user’s local system, reducing
LAN traffic and enhancing overall network
performance. The firm is now migrating its
existing archive—80 million messages
totaling more than 12TB of storage—to
Enterprise Vault running over CIFS on the
NetApp FAS3140 system.
To meet requirements for retaining and
accessing regulated information, Allen chose
NetApp SnapLock ® software. SnapLock
will allow the firm to retire its existing
EMC Centera, which is reaching end of life,
and continue to meet the firm’s retention
requirements.
Primary Nixon Peabody Data Center (Rochester, NY)
Secondary Offsite Colocation Facility
Dedicated Email/Email Archival Environment
Communications Applications and Microsoft Exchange
2010 Application Operating on Virtual Servers Include:
• Microsoft Exchange 2010 Hub Transport Servers
• Microsoft Exchange 2010 Client Access Servers
• Blackberry Enterprise Servers
• Cisco Unity Servers
• Symantec Enterprise Vault Server
General Application Environment
All Business Applications Operating on Virtual Servers Include:
Application
Layer
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005/08 • Adobe Connect Pro
• Microsoft SharePoint 2005/08 • ADERANT Expert
• Miscellaneous Batch
• Concordance
Process Job Servers
• LiveNote
Physical
Layer
10 GbE NFS
4 Gigabit Fibre Channel
10 GbE NFS
8 ESX Servers
VMware vSphere
4 VMware vSphere Servers
4 Gigabit
Fibre Channel
Virtual
Server
Layer
280
Virtual
Machines
Virtual
Server
Layer
10+ Virtual
Machines
Replicated
Virtual Machine
Data and
Applications
Application
Layer
Physical
Layer
26 ESX
Servers
10 GbE NFS
Cisco Nexus
5020 Switch
Cisco Nexus
5020 Switch
Network
Layer
NFS
10 GbE NFS
Microsoft
Exchange
2010
Mailbox
Servers
NetApp
SnapMirror
NetApp FAS3140
Storage System
Client Access to
Symantec Enterprise
Vault File Share
NetApp FAS6040
Storage System
Client Workstation
Access to File Shares
NetApp FAS3040
Storage System
Figure 1) Nixon Peabody storage infrastructure.
Eliminate tape backups and boost e-mail
performance with SnapManager for
Exchange
In the past, daily tape backups had an
adverse effect on Exchange performance.
Even though backups ran in off-hours locally,
productivity was always impacted some­
where in Nixon Peabody’s global operations.
Allen decided to eliminate tape altogether.
“We were happy with SnapManager for
Virtual Infrastructure, so it was natural to
pick SnapManager for Microsoft Exchange,”
Allen says. Using NetApp SnapManager for
Exchange, Nixon Peabody keeps 30 days’
worth of snapshots online, providing fast
recovery of files with no performance loss.
The Single Mailbox Recovery feature of
SnapManager for Exchange contributes
to e-mail availability. “We can recover an
individual mailbox or even a portion of a
mailbox almost immediately using NetApp’s
simple, easy-to-use interface,” says Allen.
BUSINESS BENEFITS
Improved e-mail performance,
reliability, and availability
The firm is reaping the benefits of its recent
investments. “Microsoft Exchange 2010
running on NetApp storage and VMware
gives us one of the highest-performing
messaging architectures available,”
says Allen. “With near-instantaneous
No unplanned downtime for NetApp
storage over two-year period
“Our storage uptime has been very good
with NetApp,” says Allen. “We’ve had only
one storage outage, and that was planned.
The NetApp system has literally had no
unplanned downtime for two years.”
Aggressive four-hour SLA
for disaster recovery
Allen is thankful that the firm has never had
to recover from a disaster, but he’s ready.
“We are committed to a four-hour SLA for
recovering our messaging system, including
Exchange 2010, Enterprise Vault, and the
BlackBerry Messaging Servers,” he says.
“Thanks to our disaster recovery environ­
ment powered by SnapMirror and Exchange
2010 Database Availability Groups, we are
confident that we can meet that target.”
As a case in point, Allen talks about his
recent Flash Cache upgrade. “We scheduled
the upgrade over the weekend, just to be
safe,” he remembers. “As it turns out, we
didn’t have to worry. We failed over one
head, powered down one head at a time,
installed the Flash Cache cards, then pow­
ered up, and switched back. The upgrade
took place over a three-hour period and our
users never even noticed.”
Timely, cooperative support from
NetApp, Cisco, and VMware
NetApp Professional Services played a key
role at Nixon Peabody, helping the firm’s
IT staff design and implement its Exchange
2010 environment. “In addition to being
storage experts, they knew how to leverage
our investment in VMware virtualization and
Cisco networking for best performance and
reliability,” says Allen.
Enhanced Microsoft SQL Server
performance with Flash Cache
To boost database and application perfor­
mance, Allen upgraded the NetApp FAS6040
system with Flash Cache. “A relatively small
investment in Flash Cache boosted the
performance of our Microsoft SQL Server
database by 15%, with no need to buy
more storage,” he explains.
Nixon Peabody also appreciates the close
relationship among its three strategic ven­
dors. “Whenever we have a support issue,
NetApp works very closely with Cisco and
VMware—as well as my own team—to
identify the root cause,” says Allen. “And
in every case, they’ve quickly come up with
a solution that works.”
communication, 7x24x365 availability,
and better archiving, our legal professionals
can support their clients better—and that’s
always our bottom line.”
“Flash Cache boosted the performance
of our Microsoft SQL Server database by
15%, with no need to buy more storage.”
Peter Allen
Director of IT Operations, Nixon Peabody LLP
Allen makes his closing argument for
NetApp: “It’s easy to manage, offers multi­
protocol support for maximum design
flexibility, and gives us the performance and
availability we need to meet our objectives.
My team is very comfortable with NetApp.”
SOLUTION COMPONENTS
NetApp products
NetApp FAS3140 system
Protocols
NFS, Fibre Channel, CIFS
NetApp FAS3040 system
NetApp FAS6040 system
Third-party products
Cisco Nexus 5020 switches
NetApp Data ONTAP ® 7G
Microsoft Exchange Server 2010
NetApp Flash Cache
Microsoft SQL Server 2005 and 2008
NetApp SnapMirror
Microsoft SharePoint Server 2003
and 2007
NetApp SnapManager for
Microsoft Exchange
NetApp SnapManager for
Virtual Infrastructure
Symantec Enterprise Vault 8.5
VMware vSphere 4
VMware vCenter™
NetApp Global Services
NetApp SupportEdge Standard
Design and Implementation Services
www.netapp.com
NetApp creates innovative storage and
data management solutions that deliver
outstanding cost efficiency and accelerate
performance breakthroughs. Discover our
passion for helping companies around the
world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.
© Copyright 2010 NetApp, Inc. All rights reserved. No portions of this
document may be reproduced without prior written consent of NetApp,
Inc. Specifications are subject to change without notice. NetApp, the
NetApp logo, Go further, faster, Data ONTAP, SnapLock, SnapManager,
and SnapMirror are trademarks or registered trademarks of NetApp,
Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft, SQL Server,
and SharePoint are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
Symantec and Enterprise Vault are trademarks of Symantec
Corporation. VMware is a registered trademark and vCenter and
vSphere are trademarks of VMware, Inc. All other brands or products
are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and
should be treated as such. CS-6350-0810