Size matters-especially as physical data center space becomes more coveted at premium prices. So why wouldn't you pack more into less, for less, if you could?

That's the approach that Green Cloud Technologies is taking with its investment in Cisco UCS S-Series storage-optimized servers. Green Cloud sells infrastructure and disaster recovery as a service, and is growing at a rapid pace. In fact, Inc. 5000 ranked Green Cloud number 73 on its list of fastest-growing companies, thanks to a 4,000 percent increase in revenue over a three-year period.

Green Cloud uses four data centers to offer infrastructure-as-a-service to small and medium-sized businesses. The company purchased Cisco UCS S3260 servers, which cost-effectively, pack a lot of storage and computing capacity into a small space.

"We didn't want SAN or NAS for this application-we wanted an intelligent device with a lot of storage capacity," explains Eric Hester, co-founder and CTO of Green Cloud. "We know UCS is reliable, we can use the same Cisco management tools we already use, and we improved density by 25 percent over a white-box solution."

According to CEO Shay Houser, UCS S3260 servers, together with Veeam backup and recovery software, will also be at the heart of Green Technologies' new backup-as-a-service offering. He'll be in good company: University College Zealand in Denmark relies on UCS 3260 servers and Veeam to meet its high-capacity storage and high-performance, scalable computing needs.

"Veeam and Cisco UCS S3260 support us by simplifying backup and recovery and optimizing backup storage," says Steffen Bendix S?jberg, IT operations manager at University College Zealand. "We now have 99.9 percent uptime and very happy users."

That means students, faculty, and staff have 24/7 access to their work. Just four rack units store up to 360 TB. Even with a 30 percent annual growth rate, the college has enough storage capacity for years to come.
The modular nature of the UCS S-Series servers gives organizations like Green Technologies and University College Zealand the flexibility and agility for optimal efficiency. A consistent management architecture means that new capabilities can be added to the UCS platform, without the need for capital-intensive upgrades. This lowers the total cost of ownership in the long run-a result also echoed by cloud services provider Cirrity. "We've reduced the cost per gigabyte by 44 percent, and we're passing the savings along to the customer," says Cirrity's Dan Timko, President and CTO.

In the meantime, Green Cloud is benefiting from the reputation capital that the Cisco brand carries. "Many of our partners are also Cisco partners, and it makes them more comfortable that we're Cisco Powered," says Hester. "We benefit from reduced risk and a faster sales cycle."

Register for the upcoming Webinar: Data Unstored: Powering Insights with Cisco UCS S-Series Storage Servers to learn more about the latest UCS product.  Learn more about Green Cloud's UCS S-Series deployment by reading the case study and watching the video. Check out Cisco Vice President of Data Center Solutions Engineering Satinder Sethi's introduction to the UCS S-Series, and watch this video to learn more about our latest offering.