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In just six months, Sanofi built an IT infrastructure consisting of three data centers that are interconnected and operate as a global private cloud. The global pharmaceutical company's private cloud leverages VMware vSphere virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions and EMC unified storage.

EMC and systems integrator, Accenture, helped to transform Sanofi's IT environment by consolidating 26 data centers to only three -- in the US, France and Singapore -- and migrating 4,000 applications to a centrally managed IT infrastructure so that information can easily be shared, accessed and moved within, across and between its data centers.

Due to a major acquisition and steady business growth, Sanofi had struggled to manage its geographically dispersed IT infrastructure around the world. Additionally, Sanofi's employees were finding it increasingly difficult to access and share data -- a capability that is critical to advancing Sanofi's pharmaceutical research, regulatory approvals and product distribution.

The 'Federated AccessAnywhere' technology inside EMC VPlex was a key enabler to achieving and expediting the massive IT consolidation while avoiding any downtime of production systems. "We can perform migrations between our data centers extremely easily," said Sebastian Roque, storage engineering manager at Sanofi Group. "In fact, we've migrated 200 applications to date to the new data centers without the 24 hours of downtime we would have endured with traditional migration methods. Our massive consolidation of 4,000 total applications would be impossible without VPlex, and once completed, will have avoided us at least 2 to 3 weeks of downtime."

"Our storage assets are shared as a single, centrally managed resource on our private cloud infrastructure, regardless of what data center they're located in," Roque added. "Our storage utilization has improved by up to 30%, helping us to maximize the value of our investments while postponing future storage expenditures."

Sanofi expects to reduce operating costs and increase overall efficiency after the migration of its 4,000 applications is complete. "With these savings, we'll be able to pour more IT resources into strategic projects that support our scientists and healthcare customers," Roque said. "As part of our ongoing IT transformation, VPlex will help us to deliver IT services to numerous business groups across Sanofi."