"OSSI understands that a complete storage solution is more than just a disk array. By working with OSSI, we didn't just install a SAN; we implemented and entirely new storage strategy."
OSSI Helps Drexel University Graduate to Storage Area Networks
The Challenge: Growth Tests Storage Capabilities
Academic life is built around information – from library resources, to class schedules, to financial systems. Instructors, students, and administrators all depend on reliable and accurate data storage. This is especially true at Drexel University, a Philadelphia institution with a reputation for leadership in science and technology.
In the last five years, Drexel's enrollment has increased 33 percent to more than 12,000 students. It also joined forces with MCP Hahnemann University, the nation's largest private medical school. Managing the entire IT infrastructure for both institutions meant disparate platforms on multiple campuses, as well as huge increases in data storage requirements.
The Solution: A Complete Answer in Three Phases
It was clear that Drexel needed not just more storage, but an entirely new storage solution – one that would provide increased performance, prove more reliable, and protect against disaster.
OSSI helped the university implement a new storage solution in three phases. First, an LSI Logic MetaStor E4400 storage array provided increased performance and additional storage capacity. In the second phase, ContinuStor Director cut backup time from four hours to one hour. Finally, in the third phase, OSSI helped Drexel start mirroring data to the MCP Hahnemann data center for complete redundancy. This change accelerated backup even further, from one hour to only ten minutes.
Results: Lasting Value in Five Major Areas
Today, Drexel has 10TB of storage in its data center – 4TB of standalone storage and 6TB on the SAN. Drexel handles all of its business operations on the SAN and plans to migrate most academic data to it, as well.
The OSSI's solution provides Drexel with clear business advantages in five key areas:
- Reliability – Drexel's old storage system crashed and lost data several times.
- Availability – The SAN provides redundant connections with no single point of failure and provides better overall performance
- Disaster Recovery – ContinuStor Director enables Drexel to mirror all data to the MCP Hahnemann data center
- Integration – The SAN facilitates integration across the heterogeneous platforms at Drexel and MCP Hahnemann, while it also allows Drexel's IT group to make upgrades without bringing down the whole system
- Support – One of the key reasons Drexel chose OSSI is because the integrator acts as a one point of accountability for every single component of the system