Success Story Efficient NetApp IT Empowers Broncos to Invest in the Future

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Customer Profile High and the Paul D. Bowlen Memorial KEY HIGHLIGHTS The are a professional Broncos Center at Dove Valley, a state- Industry football team based in Denver, Colorado. of-the-art facility where the team trains. Professional sports Owned by CEO and man- Day to day, the Broncos IT staff lever- aged by the Denver Broncos Football ages technology and delivers IT services The Challenge Club, the team is a member of the West that streamline operations, help the Meet the growing enterprise- Division of the Con- team maintain its competitive edge, and level IT, storage, and operational ference (AFC) in the National Football foster a positive experience for fans. demands of a midsize organiza- League (NFL). The Broncos play at Activities such as negotiating trades tion tasked with supporting a Sports Authority Field at Mile High and and securing draft picks depend on winning football team. have four players in the Pro Football Hall management’s ongoing access to the of Fame: , , Gary The Solution organization’s Microsoft® Exchange ® Zimmerman, and . Deploy NetApp FAS2240 Server e-mail system. On game day, storage systems in the primary The Challenge key applications that control the score- and secondary data centers to Maintaining a competitive board and audio systems that players provide asynchronous disaster football edge and coaches rely on must remain avail- recovery for each site. The Denver Broncos are one of the able. New initiatives such as a mobile video application for fans demand a Benefits most successful teams in NFL history, flexible, high-performance infrastructure • Empowers IT organization with winning two Super Bowls and six AFC that won’t let fans down. efficient, streamlined storage Championships. With an intensely loyal fan base, the team has succeeded management To meet current operational needs in selling out every home nonstrike • Eliminates off-site tape stor- and carry the organization forward, regular-season game since 1970 and age, reduces capex and opex, the IT staff established that it needed growing its waiting list for season tick- and accelerates recovery of to upgrade the storage environment. ets to 32,000 fans. critical Broncos data “We’re a relatively small shop with • Provides infrastructure to The Denver Broncos organization enterprise needs,” says Russ Trainor, seamlessly scale from 50 depends on an advanced IT infrastruc- Denver Broncos vice president of Infor- terabytes to 1 petabyte ture to operate both on and off the mation Technology. “We run opposing field. The organization of approximately team videos at Dove Valley, deliver 300 employees operates out of offices digital playbooks via Apple iPads to our at both Sports Authority Field at Mile team and coaches, and create a highly “With a flexible, dynamic NetApp environment, supporting innovative tools such as the Apple® iPad® running the PlayerLync App with digital playbooks, the entire Broncos organization can better support the Broncos team in taking on the opposition while we attract and retain fans for years to come.” Russ Trainor Vice President of Information Technology, Denver Broncos Football Club

collaborative communication environ- plugging in cables, and setting up the robust APIs, and important technology ment for a sizable game-day staff at the communication protocols for the sys- partnerships. stadium. Our IT and storage demands tem,” says Trainor. “PEAK Resources for both performance and capacity are provides superior technical skills and The NetApp solution supports the orga- continually growing.” excellent customer service.” nization’s new PlayerLync application, which provides digital video playback, High performance, efficiency, and high The NetApp platform runs on the Data playbook, and communication features availability were top criteria for the new ONTAP® 8 architecture operating in to Broncos coaches, players, and storage solution, along with the flexibil- 7-Mode and stores more than 50 tera- the player personnel department as ity to accommodate 10GbE connectiv- bytes of data, with the ability to seam- they prepare for the next game. The ity when the time was right. The IT team lessly scale to a capacity of just under Broncos’ NetApp environment also wanted to step up its backup, restore, 1 petabyte. NetApp deduplication helps supports the organization’s Microsoft and disaster recovery capabilities. Inte- optimize the storage environment by Great Plains accounting software and gration with existing Microsoft, Cisco®, reducing storage requirements by up to the ThirdLight digital media manage- VMware®, and other technologies was 20 to 25%. “The NetApp FAS2240 sys- ment server, which enables internal imperative. In addition, the new storage tem offers us the efficiency and manage- employees, media, and sponsors to solution had to provide ample room to ability we need today, plus the flexibility retrieve Broncos event photographs, its grow for years into the future. and scalability to support delivery of new, Citrix farm servers, remote-user servers diverse IT services as Denver Broncos and file shares, an event management The Solution needs change,” says Chris Newman, IT application, security systems, various Supporting players, coaches, staff, architect for the Denver Broncos. application servers, and more. and fans The Broncos IT team deployed NetApp The NetApp solution will soon support The IT team uses NetApp OnCommand FAS2240 storage systems in the club’s the Broncos’ Microsoft Exchange Server management software to efficiently primary data center at Sports Authority 2010 environment and currently sup- control NetApp storage systems as a Field at Mile High and its secondary ports the team’s Microsoft SQL Server® single pool of resources across the SAN data center at Dove Valley. PEAK 2008 environments, which are fully virtu- environment. OnCommand Balance, Resources, Inc., a technology solutions alized on VMware vSphere® along with which will be installed shortly, will help provider based in Denver, Colorado, 95% of the organization’s infrastructure. the staff perform activities such as moni- and participant in the NetApp Partner The Broncos Club recently upgraded its toring and optimizing the performance of Program for Resellers, assisted the Den- wired and wireless network infrastruc- virtual servers. OnCommand Protection ver Broncos with designing, deploying, ture at the stadium and training facility Manager, NetApp SnapMirror® technol- and implementing best practices for the with Cisco Nexus® and 3750 series ogy, and NetApp SnapVault® technology NetApp solution. “We worked closely switches, Cisco 3500 and 3600 series help protect Broncos administrative staff with PEAK Resources, from designing access points, and Cisco 5508 and 2504 and football team data through replica- the platform to disk configurations, controllers. NetApp integrates with these tion between data centers over the wire. technologies via OnCommand® plug-ins, Sports Authority Field Data Center Dove Valley Data Center Network: Cisco Nexus 7010 Series Switches Stadium Applications: Cisco 3750 Series Switches Team HQ’s Applications: Microsoft Exchange Server 2007/2010 PlayerLync Microsoft SQL Server 2005/2008 Microsoft Great Plains ThirdLight Digital Media Management Server Microsoft SQL 2005/2008 Citrix Farm Servers

VMware vSphere 5VMware vSphere 5 NetApp SnapManager for Microsoft Exchange NetApp SnapManager for SQL Server NetApp Deduplication NetApp OnCommand Unified Manager NetApp Virtual Storage Console

NetApp FAS2240 NetApp SnapMirror NetApp FAS2240 Running on NetApp Data NetApp Snapshot Running on NetApp Data ONTAP 8 operating in 7-Mode NetApp SnapRestore ONTAP 8 operating in 7-Mode NetApp SnapVault

Figure 1) Denver Broncos deployed NetApp FAS2240 storage systems in the primary and secondary data centers running Data ONTAP 8 operating in 7-Mode and stores more than 50 terabytes of data. The NetApp solution supports the new PlayerLync application, the organization’s Microsoft Great Plains accounting software, and the ThirdLight digital media management server.

Snapshot™ and SnapRestore® technol- “Whether our accounting team is man- Early adoption and ongoing ogy, the Virtual Storage Console, and aging financial data or Broncos players innovation SnapManager for Microsoft Exchange are viewing videos in our training facility The flexible, secure NetApp storage and Microsoft SQL Server protect on their iPads, they can keep doing environment and advanced storage data locally. what they’re doing.” management capabilities continue to support Broncos technology initiatives. Protecting invaluable Broncos data Business Benefits For example, Broncos IT and video Doing things better and faster in IT NetApp backup and recovery solutions staff members recently collaborated to NetApp OnCommand management help protect critical team and organi- deploy Apple iPads to more than 130 software and a highly flexible data infra- zational assets with 90 days of local mobile players, coaches, managers, structure enable the IT team to quickly backups ready for quick restoration and and support staff. The iPad-accessible and effectively manage and modify the remote, replicated data for recovery in data resides on virtual servers running storage environment to accommodate the event of a disaster. The staff rep- on NetApp. Via WiFi, the Broncos team data growth and changing Broncos licates data between the stadium and can view clips of plays and opponent requirements. Also important, the staff training facility 20 away, eliminat- game footage within hours of a game or can make even extensive changes to ing the need for physical storage space practice, whether in the locker room or the environment without disrupting criti- and tape backups while reducing the training facility or at home. cal day-to-day Broncos operations. risks of a disaster. The Apple iPads can also access col- “With our previous storage solution, “We no longer have to call the off-site laboration and itinerary tools, as well we were very restricted in our data tape storage company and spend as a digital playbook that is always management, making it difficult even valuable time and money waiting to current via the PlayerLync application. to grow CIFS share volumes,” says recover lost data,” says Trainor. “We The online playbook eliminates the cost Newman. “NetApp allows us to manage just log into the NetApp OnCommand and complexity of producing 500-page our data far more intelligently. We can management console and in minutes hard-copy playbooks that required resize Microsoft SQL Server volumes can retrieve the requested files or manual updates and reprinting several on the fly, doubling the space while data, which reduces capex and opex times per week. The online playbook the virtual servers continue to run and and helps us better serve the Broncos stored on NetApp storage also gives employees continue to access impor- staff.” With a comprehensive, reliable players more time to review plays tant application data.” business continuity plan, the Broncos before and after games. can protect vital training, medical staff, Smarter, streamlined storage manage- video team, media relations, advertis- The IT staff has a clear understanding ment translates into a highly responsive ing, financial, and other operations. of their vital impact on operational IT organization. “We can simply do They also secure critical, confidential efficiency and, most important, Broncos things better and faster with NetApp, data such as player medical records, team success. “We’re both early adopt- and with no impact to the Broncos staff playbooks, staff salaries, and corporate ers of new technology and effective at in costly downtime,” notes Newman. e-mails related to trade negotiations. “We can simply do things better and faster with NetApp, and with no impact to the Broncos staff in costly downtime. Whether our accounting team is managing financial data or Broncos players are viewing videos on their iPads in our training facility, they can keep doing what they’re doing.” Chris Newman IT Architect, Denver Broncos Football Club

leveraging proven technologies,” says SOLUTION COMPONENTS Trainor. “With a flexible, dynamic NetApp environment supporting innovative tools NetApp Products Third-Party Products such as Apple iPads running PlayerLync NetApp FAS2240 storage systems VMware vSphere with digitized playbooks and video, the Data ONTAP 8 operating in 7-Mode Cisco Nexus 7010 series switches entire Broncos organization can better support the Broncos team in taking OnCommand Unified Manager Cisco 3750 series switches on the opposition while we attract and Snapshot and SnapRestore Cisco 2504, 5508 wireless controllers retain fans for years to come.” technology Cisco 3500 and 3600 series access SnapManager for Microsoft points Exchange and SQL Server Microsoft Great Plains Virtual Storage Console ThirdLight SnapMirror Citrix SnapVault PlayerLync Deduplication Partner Protocols Peak Resources CIFS www.peakresources.com

iSCSI Environment Fibre Channel Applications: Microsoft Exchange 2007, 2010 Database: Microsoft SQL Server 2005, 2008 Server platform: Microsoft Server 2003, 2008

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