CA State Agency of Natural Resources Chooses NetApp for Cloud Service Deployment

“The State of California Natural Resources Agency has become the model for how you deploy cloud services in government. Their vision, combined with NetApp’s industry-leading data management portfolio and in collaboration with other virtualization technology partners, is helping a state with the world’s eighth largest economy better manage scarce natural resources during a time when attention to conservation is paramount.”

6 years ago, California state agencies faced a severe budget cuts. The California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) could no longer afford to support the business without a radical change in its IT service architecture. The California State CIO launched a strategic IT plan to meet growing demand with fewer resources. In response, the CNRA deployed the state’s first internal private cloud built on industry technologies that utilize NetApp®  storage and became a model for cloud services in government.

The CNRA and its 29 departments are responsible for the management of California’s precious resources from its coastlines to its parks, fish, wildlife, energy sources, and water. The CNRA depends on real-time data access to make informed decisions and respond quickly to disasters such as flood, fire, drought, and earthquakes.

Prior to the deployment of an internal private cloud built on NetApp storage and other industry virtualization technologies, each department in the CNRA was responsible for its own IT infrastructure, resulting in “islands” of disparate and siloed systems. Duplicate equipment and operational management efforts were costly. The time needed to fulfill IT computing service requests could not keep up with the business demands. In addition, departments could not share information to collaborate on matters critical to the agency’s success.

“We were in dire straits. Without a fundamental change in our service architecture, we would have been out of the game,” says Tim Garza, IT director, California Natural Resources Agency. “NetApp understood where we were going, the opportunity with cloud, and delivered the storage technology to enable our vision as a business enabler, not a technology shop. NetApp provided the multi-tenant, share services storage infrastructure and functions to support the increased data demands on resources within our agency.

More Efficient Storage, More Efficient Government
Using the NetApp clustered Data ONTAP® operating system, OnCommand® System Manager, and FAS hybrid storage systems, the CNRA multi-tenant private cloud has enabled the following breakthroughs:

• Lower costs through infrastructure consolidation and storage efficiency. The CNRA consolidated separate IT infrastructures in multiple locations and experienced storage efficiencies that led to the ability to store 300% more data in a 30% smaller storage physical footprint. At the same time, the CNRA reduced overall IT capital expense across the agency by 42% and operational expense by 35%.
• Secure multi-tenancy. Security is essential when working with sensitive data. Using NetApp technology, each CNRA department has a securely isolated space within the shared environment and can manage its own datastore without making it accessible to anyone else.
• Scalability and capacity on demand. A highly flexible IT infrastructure allows the agency to provision computer resources and storage as departments and demands grow or shrink. Provisioning capacity enables departments to receive storage and computing resources 70% more quickly.
• Nondisruptive operations. Storage availability is critical to CNRA personnel, who rely on applications to plan responses to fires and floods. With NetApp clustered Data ONTAP, the CNRA has increased availability to 99.99% with no scheduled downtime.
• Increased IT business value. Nondisruptive operations and easy provisioning free up time that IT staff would be spending on day-to-day operations. Now the CNRA has more time for strategic initiatives and to better align IT resources and services to the needs of the business.
• Increased performance. The CNRA is better positioned to address a variety of needs, such as virtual desktop infrastructure, high-performance computing, big data analytics, and mobile strategies, while simultaneously improving reliability and scalability. This increase in performance enables business users to perform critical computation and analysis more effectively and in reduced time frames.