SPIE helping “Toulon Provence Méditerranée Métropole” to modernise its IT environment

Deployment of a new hybrid storage system featuring Microsoft Azure

Paris, October 9th, 2018 – Toulon Provence Méditerranée Métropole (TPM) has entrusted SPIE ICS, the digital services subsidiary of SPIE France, with modernising its IT system, and in particular with changing its data-storage and file-sharing procedures. This constitutes a major challenge in terms of service continuity for the local authority’s 1,200-strong workforce, which is split across two main sites, and SPIE has risen to it by offering an innovative solution involving the ground-breaking deployment of Microsoft Azure File Sync.

The contract, which was awarded in April, is divided into a number of phases that will each have an impact on both the storage of data on TPM’s entire IT system, and the accessing and sharing of files, whether individually or collaboratively. The Microsoft-related expertise of SPIE ICS’s teams, which was enhanced even further during previous work carried out in South-East France for other major clients such as Thalès Alenia Space and departmental councils in Hautes-Alpes and Alpes-Maritimes, proved to be a decisive factor in the awarding of the contract.

A quick and secure access to data, adapted to day-to-day uses

As part of its efforts to modernise its traditional SAN (Storage Area Network) storage solution, TPM has opted for a hybrid storage environment having a capacity of 50 TB of data. This new and extremely innovative system involves data being stored both in the Microsoft Azure cloud and on site, via the Azure File Sync tool. This technology, the most recent version of which has only been available since 19 July 2018, allows users to store files that are not regularly used in the cloud whilst keeping the data that they refer to most often on local servers. This smart caching feature therefore offers high performance, security and ease of use in one package.

“Our client has a highly innovative plan to modernise its IT system, which is based on software, the services available within an Azure Cloud in hybrid mode, and a simplified user experience,” explains Jean-François Apréa, an expert on Microsoft and the manager of SPIE ICS’s Microsoft expertise centre. “We were therefore able to offer TPM a customised solution. The Metropole is now splitting its investments between on-site storage (On-Premise, CAPEX) and Azure Cloud storage (OPEX), depending on its requirements.”

Moving towards collaborative file sharing

The migration of data to Azure File Sync, which is currently undergoing testing at low volumes within TPM’s IT department, will only be achieved once DELL has released new items of hardware this October. Alongside these operations, SPIE ICS is also taking charge of migrating 3,000 Exchange mailboxes to Office 365, notably in order to make use of its collaborative functions and its file-sharing capabilities.

“SPIE ICS is helping us to finalise our plans and to implement these new technologies by gaining the best possible understanding of the new uses. This way, we will be able to offer our users an even better day-to-day working experience, all whilst taking account of the structural changes that we will undergo in 2019,” says Laurent LANZA, head of TPM’s IT Infrastructure Project Department.