Bilfen continues digital transformation with HPE SimpliVity Hyper Integrated solutions and ITserv Technology.

 

Bilfen Group of Companies, the pioneer of education in the field of digital transformation, has acquired a structure that is simple, easily manageable, scalable, does not compromise performance and efficiency, and does not experience the maintenance and management difficulties of traditional architecture by investing in HPE’s SimpliVity Hyper Integrated solutions.

Bilfen is an educational institution that has an important place in Turkish national education, acts according to the learning styles of students, respects their original and strong aspects, is student-centered, differentiated, which will make a difference in students’ lives, is innovative and will prepare them for the future with 142 schools, 27.500 students and 4.200 teachers. Bilfen Group of Companies provides employment opportunities for more than 7.400 people in more than 100 locations in 19 companies operating in different sectors.

Bilfen Group of Companies, which does not remain indifferent to technological developments in the world and adopts the mission to implement the most appropriate solutions simultaneously with the world, has decided to implement a new project within the scope of digital transformation to meet the ever-increasing needs of operations, data storage, backup, business continuity and disaster recovery with full backup, efficient and high performance. Bilfen Group of Companies System and Network Manager Muhammed Şahin stated that they took action to get rid of the difficulties brought by traditional IT architecture and to reach a new IT infrastructure suitable for the digital age: “As Bilfen Group of Companies, we have a business network consisting of more than 6.400 computers,150 servers and 100 locations. We started new searches under the leadership of our Information Technologies Manager Güray Kaymaz for increased workload, performance, efficiency, backup, business continuity and disaster recovery needs. While continuing the digital transformation rapidly, we started to search for alternatives that are simple, easy to manage, scalable but will not compromise on performance and efficiency, and will not experience the maintenance and management challenges of traditional architecture. From the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems we use in different companies and sectors, to the digital learning systems we offer to thousands of students and teachers; from the access and management systems we offer to our stakeholders, to our suppliers; we have decided to continue on our path with HPE Turkey, a powerful and efficient manufacturer that will provide for this huge ecosystem.”

We obtained time, cost and performance advantages

With the suggestion of ITserv Technology company, which has been working as a business partner of Bilfen since 2014, as a result of the long-term technical meetings they held together, Hyper Integrated systems were the main subject of attention. With HPE SimpliVity Hyper Integrated solutions, products that will meet expectations by keeping traditional architecture comparisons, while keeping performance and efficiency at the highest level were determined. And these products are also going to be consolidated, simple, scalable and will provide business continuity.

Muhammed Şahin conveys this process, which requires a lot of attention and care, as follows: “With the business partner ITserv Technology , during the POC process, we have seen that we can provide installation, configuration and management processes that will take days or even weeks in traditional architectures, can be done in only 4-5 days with HPE SimpliVity Hyper Integrated Systems. The reports we pulled from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, while taking hours in traditional architecture, have now fallen to minutes, so that the problem-solving time of the infrastructure managers has been shortened and the employees and managers of the companies served have been very pleased. Backing up of large virtual servers previously started only during out of hours due to performance issues and took several hours. Currently, all backup operations can be completed in under 1 minute and can be restored from backup under 1 minute. While storing the backups we take, we can save storage space by using the compression and deduplication features of HPE SimpliVity, and we can save our backups for longer periods of time. While planned maintenance and updating processes are planned separately and carried out in long periods of time in traditional systems, these processes can be completed in a very simple and short time in HPE SimpliVity.”

With this project, we also made savings in data size

When we transferred our virtual servers, which we keep in classical storage architectures, to HPE SimpliVity, we saw that we reduced the total data size by half, but there was no performance loss. Today, we provide a 1/518.5 efficiency by using the compression, deduplication and local backup features of HPE SimpliVity.

Among the expectations of business units in Bilfen Group were the response of all the systems they used with the lowest latency, rapid reporting, simultaneous operation with different systems and running their business without interruption. Among the expectations of the information technology group were uninterrupted and high-performance operation, shortening updating and maintenance processes, taking backups in a very short time without loss of performance and ensuring that these backups were restored in a very short time. Muhammed Şahin states that all these goals have been achieved with the project.

We have the same digital transformation vision as HPE

Underlining that the approach shown to the project and the added value offered by HPE Turkey and its partner ITServ Technology are very important, Şahin expresses this with the following words: “As Bilfen Group of Companies, we are a customer that has adopted HPE’s products for many years and is aware of its value added services. As a company that has adopted the digital transformation focus of HPE, which directs technology in this direction, we are rapidly moving towards becoming an institution that looks and digitalizes from the same perspective, adapts rapidly to technological developments and brings a new breath to the world of education.”

We had the opportunity to experience the outstanding features of HPE SimpliVity such as business continuity, backup, restore from backup, fast action, performance, efficiency and easy management with the intense POCs we make in Bilfen Cloud. In addition, we have achieved an end-to-end solution by combining the added value of important software such as HPE InfoSight (Artificial Intelligence) and IRS (Support Automation) with the experience of ITserv Technology. In addition to these processes, the complementary services offered by ITBackup and ITCloud within ITGroup, the company of ITserv Technology Services, played an important role in our progress with ITServ Technology in this project.

We paved the way for uninterrupted education in Bilfen

Quality in education is one of the most important factors affecting the development levels of countries. Educational institutions need infrastructures that can carry these technologies safely in order for these institutions to follow new education and training methodologies. Having new generation infrastructures is critical in terms of both providing uninterrupted education and introducing students to the latest technologies in the early stages. In order to achieve this, HPE Turkey Channel Sales Manager Taha Niron says that as a company, they share all the developments in technology with educational institutions, provide the newest infrastructure systems and are with them in all processes to ensure the highest benefit from these technologies.

Business continuity was ensured without leaving existing equipment idle

ITServ Technology, the business partner of HPE Turkey in this project, took part in all steps, starting with the design process of the infrastructure, choosing the hardware, testing and installing it, and then making all the systems operational. Salih Topçu, ITServ Technology Sales Manager, conveys the strategy and solution steps they follow as ITserv Technology in their project with Bilfen: “HPE has a long-standing partnership with Bilfen Group of Companies. Considering the institution’s growth momentum every year, the need for an improved system infrastructure has made the transition to All-Flash systems mandatory. In addition to the performance contribution, we aimed to minimize the workloads in operational terms by making the structure more consolidated instead of an upgrade in the existing diffused architecture. In transition to new systems, we positioned existing hardware in different regions as a business continuity point. In short, we provided an added value solution by ensuring that the existing equipment is used in line with the disaster prevention solution without leaving it idle.”

Project components

• HPE SimpliVity Hyper Integrated solutions
• HPE StoreOnce backup systems
• HPE Aruba Backbone switching systems

Project objectives

• To be able to make rapid consolidated reporting in order to prepare investment plans based on analysis.
• Employees working without interruption or any loss of work and the training provided is not interrupted.
• Working simultaneously with different systems at the same performance.
• Shortening the update and maintenance processes.
• To be able to take backups in a very short time without compromising performance.
• To be able to restore backups in a very short time.
• To obtain a simple, easily manageable, scalable, consolidated infrastructure.
• Efficient and high-performance work.

Success criteria and achievements

• Reports that can be taken in a few hours can now be received in minutes.
• All backup operations can be completed in under a minute.
• You can restore from backup in under a minute.
• It is possible to work with much less hardware.
• Huge savings were made in license costs.
• All IT needs are met from a single center, consolidated and with high performance.
• Maintenance and updating processes have decreased from weeks to hours.