SUCCESS STORY

Life Sciences

RAFA | PROBLEM SOLVED

Rafa, one of Israel’s leading pharmaceutical firms, installed

an HCI system at its manufacturing facility to improve

performance and efficiency.

Rafa enhances production efficiency and performance with HCIRafa consolidated its storage and compute systems by installing an HCI system at

its manufacturing site. The solution increases performance and efficiency to help

Rafa maintain the quality and integrity of its partner products, which are produced

by some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical firms. Integrated with many of the

company’s critical systems – including ERP, SAP and BI – the stable and reliable HCI

solution gives Rafa peace of mind as it prepares to move into new areas over the

upcoming years.

NETAPP.COM/CONTACT

Better Performance Greater Efficiency Week Deployment

30% 4.3x 2-

“We looked at NetApp HCI installations at other

companies, and decided that it was the right and reliable

choice for us.”Yaakov Aflalo CIO Manager, Rafa

Rafa is one of Israel’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Founded over 80 years ago, Rafa markets, manufactures and distributes prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) medicines. Part of the global Mundipharma/Napp network, Rafa partners with some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, including Purdue, Galderma, Takeda, AstraZeneca, Dr. Falk Pharma, and Helsinn.

In order to ensure the quality of its partner products and maintain a competitive edge, Rafa is always looking to increase the efficiency and performance of its manufacturing facilities and distribution network. After years of maintaining separate storage and compute systems, Rafa decided to merge these critical operations into a single solution that could handle growth both today and long into the future.

“We were running separate storage and processing servers, which made our operations and management more challenging on the one hand, and less efficient on the other,” says Yaakov Aflalo, Rafa’s CIO Manager. “We understood that by consolidating the systems into a

uniform solution, we could not only improve our efficiency, but also focus our efforts in the upcoming years in new areas without worrying about infrastructure.”

LOOKING FOR STABILITY AND RELIABILITYWith this in mind, Rafa embarked on a rigorous, year-long search process for the right hyper converged solution. The company initially looked at several vendors before whittling them down to a shortlist of two. “Given that our storage and computing activities are essential to our success, the new solution had to be, above all, stable and reliable,” Aflalo says. “In addition, we wanted a system that’s easy to operate and manage, and of course, attractive in price.” As one of two finalists, NetApp HCI fit all of Rafa’s selection criteria. That, coupled with the solution’s proven track record at other manufacturing sites in Israel, helped clinch the deal for NetApp. “We looked at NetApp HCI installations in other companies, and decided that it was the right and reliable choice for us,” Aflalo says.

Working together with its partner Bynet Data Communications, Israel’s leading provider of end-to-end

integration solutions, NetApp installed the solution, including the migration of data from previous systems, in just two weeks. “NetApp has provided us with outstanding support throughout the process,” Aflalo says. “From the get-go, the staff has exhibited the highest level of professionalism and proficiency.”

Comprised of 4 storage nodes and 4 compute nodes, the NetApp solution connects to several critical IT systems to make a positive impact on most of Rafa’s 300-plus workers. “NetApp HCI plays an important role throughout our operations,” Aflalo says. “The solution integrates with ERP, SAP, manufacturing, business intelligence, and other systems, and makes a difference across our entire company.”

MAKING A DIFFERENCE IN PERFORMANCE AND EFFICIENCYOne area in which NetApp HCI makes a difference is performance. Replacing Rafa’s hybrid storage systems with all-flash storage, NetApp HCI has improved system performance by up to 30%.

And it’s also making an impact on efficiency. The state-of-the-art HCI

“NetApp HCI scales easily. So, when the time comes for us

to grow, we won’t have to invest in additional resources.

All we’ll have to do is plug it in and let it run.”Yaakov Aflalo CIO Manager, Rafa

solution archives huge quantities of data while requiring far less storage space than Rafa’s previous systems, which were also provided by NetApp. As a result, NetApp HCI increases overall efficiency by 4.3x, including nearly double the compression efficiency and 1.5x improved deduplication and thin provisioning efficiency.

But that’s not all. “Since there’s just one GUI for all functions, the solution is user-friendly and helps us save on time and manpower,” Aflalo says. “HCI integrates with our legacy VMware interface, so everything is transparent and simple. We can create work environments as well as migrate and replicate data in no time at all.”

CREATING GREATER VALUE WHILE ENSURING QOSAt the heart of NetApp’s data center ecosystem, NetApp HCI offers customers a wide range of other benefits. When NetApp HCI

is monitored by NetApp’s ActiveIQ Cloud solution, it provides analysis and forecasting tools to help identify and eliminate bugs quickly while adding value and further savings. And replicating data from traditional FAS hybrid storage systems to the all-flash HCI solution is easy, leading to greater cost savings.

Another salient feature of NetApp HCI is quality of service (QoS). Data centers are often challenged to deliver predictable performance, particularly when multiple applications run over the same infrastructure. Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), database and other mainstream applications, for example, maintain unique I/O patterns that can, during normal operations, affect one another’s performance in shared environment deployments. When such performance degradation occurs,

IT admin personnel need to spend valuable time troubleshooting.

NetApp HCI’s QoS enables granular control of performance for every application. As a result, the solution helps eliminate noisy neighbors, meet unique performance needs, provide higher utilization of infrastructure, and satisfy performance SLAs. The solution’s storage architecture also eliminates performance variance vis-à-vis data locality, since the data is distributed across all of the nodes in the HCI cluster.

“Our decision to go with NetApp HCI is strategic, and gives us the peace of mind to move ahead in new directions over the upcoming years.”

Yaakov AflaloCIO Manager, Rafa

LEARN MORE

NetApp is the data authority for hybrid cloud. We provide a full range of hybrid cloud data services that simplify management of applications and data across cloud and on-premises environments to accelerate digital transformation. Together with our partners, we empower global organizations to unleash the full potential of their data to expand customer touchpoints, foster greater innovation and optimize their operations. For more information, visit www.netapp.com. #DataDriven

©2018 NetApp, Inc. All Rights Reserved. NETAPP, the NETAPP logo, and the marks listed at http://www.netapp.com/TM are trademarks of NetApp, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

NETAPP.COM/CONTACT +1 877 263 8277

SCALING FOR A BIGGER AND BETTER FUTUREWhile the storage capacity available to Rafa with NetApp HCI is nearly two times more than its current requirements, Aflalo knows he has a system that he can count on for years to come. “NetApp HCI scales easily,” he says. “So, when the time comes for us to grow, we won’t have to invest in additional resources. All we’ll have to do is plug it in and let it run.”

And with plans to add soon a second HCI solution that will serve as a disaster recovery system, Rafa views NetApp HCI as an integral part of its future. “Our decision to go with NetApp HCI is strategic, and gives us the peace of mind to move ahead in new directions over the upcoming years,” Aflalo says.

NETAPP PRODUCTS

SOLUTION COMPONENTS

NetApp HCI

4 X H500S storage nodes

4 X H500E compute nodes

ONTAP Select 2TB Premium license