Alelo Consolidates Data Center and Prepares for the Cloud with IBM PureSystems

SAO PAULO, Dec. 11, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that Alelo Brasil, a Brazilian provider of pre-paid credit and benefit cards, has deployed a solution based on PureSystems that will upgrade and simplify their IT infrastructure at mirrored sites in Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. As a result of the technology upgrade, Alelo will be able to move its applications into the cloud, providing enhanced services for customers.

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Alelo had an existing data center of more than 90 servers and needed to move to a more virtualized infrastructure that could support operations growth while ensuring the organization's high standard of service quality for its customers. The organization was looking for a solution that would help reduce the need for physical data center space, and provide the high availability and scalability necessary for new projects.

Working with IBM, Alelo chose to deploy PureSystems running a hybrid Power and x86 environment that would keep the databases on a virtualized UNIX platform and workload applications on x86 platforms.[1]  This environment would allow Alelo to consolidate and simplify its server footprint, reduce spending on software license and expand system availability and performance. The project also included a mirrored system in a second site, located 600km away from the main data center, helping ensure high availability and business continuity.

The tangible benefits of the project were almost immediate. In addition to consolidating the data center, generating significant reduction in power consumption and heat emission; the reduction in the number of processors generated considerable savings in software licenses. PureSystems also helped the company to spend less in hardware and software maintenance and provided high performance with fewer resources.

This return on investment is one of the main reasons that since the systems were launched in April 2012, more than 8,000 clients from 100 countries have selected IBM PureSystems.

The IBM PureSystems family offers clients an alternative to current enterprise computing models, where multiple and disparate systems require significant resources to set up and maintain. The PureFlex System enables organizations to more efficiently create and manage an infrastructure. PureApplication Systems help organizations reduce the cost and complexity of rapidly deploying and managing applications. PureData Systems are tuned for cloud computing and can consolidate more than 100 databases on a single system. In addition to the common web application patterns supported by PureApplication System, the combination of both PureData and PureApplication Systems can be used for end to end transaction workloads.

For more information on IBM PureSystems visit: www.ibm.com/press/pure

Alelo is a Brazilian company with a portfolio of simple and complete solutions, ranging from benefit cards for companies of all sizes, to prepaid cards for consumers nationwide. In business for over ten years, Alelo was in 2013 named the leader in the benefits sector by the Workers' Food Program (PAT) at Brazil's Ministry of Labor and Employment. It is trusted by thousands of corporate clients and has the largest network of commercial affiliates in Brazil. Among the products offered by the company are Alelo Refeicao (Meals), Alelo Alimentacao (Food), Alelo Natal Alimentacao (Christmas Meals), Vale-Cultura (Cultural options), Flex Car (fuel), transport voucher management services, VisaTravel Money and prepaid cards, Prepax.

For further information on the company, please go to www.alelo.com.br, www.facebook.com/AleloBrasil and www.twitter.com/alelobrasil.

[1] The solution implemented by IBM in the Alelo data center includes two Power 780 servers with 64 cores and 1TB of memory, a PureFlex Enterprise System with Flex System x240, software management and software SmartCloud Entry ready to trigger the cloud usage according to customer needs.

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IBM Systems and Technology Group
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SOURCE IBM