Alexandria Networks - Keeping Your Business Moving

8/1/2011 - Alexandria Networks has won the bid to virtualize the server infrastructure at the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) in Alexandria, Virginia. "After nearly two years of project planning and working directly with NCPA's Operation's Department, we're happy to assist NCPA with their virtualization initiative using VMware, Microsoft and HP technologies." said Michael Miller, President & CEO of Alexandria Networks. "We have worked on consolidating their environment from twelve physical servers down to only three now using VMware, Microsoft and HP technologies.”

NCPA is an Alexandria, Virginia based association that is an advocate for the continuing growth and prosperity of independent community pharmacy in the United States. They are a national pharmacy association representing the professional and proprietary interests of independent community pharmacists and vigorously promote and defend those interests. With nearly 70 staff members and a large network infrastructure to support the association, NCPA’s server infrastructure was in need of an upgrade from its aging hardware and software.

Alexandria Networks will be using VMware Essentials Plus with high availability between multiple servers for redundancy as well as building out a colocation for offsite replication between NCPA’s main data center and their new colo site. By leveraging Alexandria Networks’ HP partnership, we are able to implement brand new HP DL360G7 64 bit servers with a HP P2000 SAN for storage at the local site. Phase two of the project consists of building out the colo site for NCPA with full replication of their IT systems to meet NCPA’s Recovery Time Objective in the event of a disaster or outage. The driving force behind the need for a colo was the overloaded and weak power grid in Old Town Alexandria that frequently experiences power outages and brown-outs. NCPA’s staff works around the clock both onsite and remotely so the system must be stable at all times.

This solution is an excellent solution for any association looking to scale back on the amount of physical hardware needing to be replaced while going “green” by way of less power consumption in the data center.Alexandria Networks will be building a case study for this project shortly after completion, so please check back soon at www.AlexandriaNetworks.com for more details.