Best Buy Implements CNT SAN


CNT(R) this week announced that Best Buy Co., Inc. has successfully implemented a large-scale storage area network (SAN) system using Brocade(R) fabric switches.


“We wanted a larger, more scaleable storage networking system that would better serve our new business opportunities,” said Rich Christensen, vice president of enterprise technology systems at Best Buy. “CNT helped us complete a preliminary SAN assessment to determine our needs, designed a growth-oriented storage network solution, and put together an aggressive implementation plan. Their expertise in storage networking paid off by helping us achieve a successful implementation that was up and running quickly and effectively.”


“Best Buy has a world-class IT organization that understands the strategic value of corporate data, and at the same time looks ahead to identify and anticipate changes in the business,” said Tom Hudson, president and CEO, CNT. “Many IT organizations get a reputation for being reactionary and overly conservative, but Best Buy represents the new breed of IT departments — ones who understand the overall business strategy and take bold, proactive steps to use information technology to enable real business results. We’re pleased that we’ve been able to assist them with CNT consulting, integration services and technology in developing a fast, flexible storage networking architecture that is well-equipped to address today’s requirements and accommodate their future growth.”


According to CNT, the SAN design called for five Fibre Channel SANs: one at Best Buy’s corporate location and four at the company’s data center. Best Buy’s corporate SANs are comprised of 13 Brocade(R) SilkWorm fabric switches with 13 drives for information storage and backup. The largest of Best Buy’s data center SANs links 16 Brocade fabric switches and 40 STK 9840 tape drives. The second SAN, located outside the Best Buy firewall, connects public Internet servers with three Brocade fabric switches. The third and fourth SANs, a three switch tape SAN and a 12 switch disk SAN, support Best Buy’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications.


“Brocade is pleased to provide the intelligent networking platform for Best Buy storage environments,” said Jack Cuthbert, Brocade vice president of Worldwide Marketing, Sales, and Support Services. “SANs are a strategic part of the IT infrastructure and deliver one of the highest returns on technology investment. Through their investment in SANs, Best Buy can quickly scale their storage environments to meet increasing data storage requirements, while reducing data management costs and maintaining the highest level of security and availability of their critical business data.”

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