Computerworld Looks at Five Techniques to Reduce the Volume of Stored Data - http://bit.ly/9N5Awy
Nexsan is highlighted in this week’s issue of Computerworld in an article titled, “5 ways to cut your storage footprint.” The article highlights five approaches to data reduction for cutting hardware and software costs, reducing power and data center space requirements. Nexsan’s DeDupe SG and Assureon Secure Online Disk Archive are featured in the article.
Quoted in the story is Randy Chalfant, vice president of strategy for Nexsan. In the article he states that enterprise-wide deduplication saves money by eliminating duplicate copies of data stored on the various platforms. This is critical because most organizations create as many as 15 copies of the same data for use by applications such as data mining, ERP and customer relationship management systems.
The Nexsan DeDupe SG is designed for data protection and disaster recovery applications that require high-performance deduplication. Integrating the latest version of the FalconStor File-Interface Deduplication System (FDS), the Nexsan DeDupe SG 2.0 is the first LAN-based deduplication system to offer high availability. As part of the most recent enhancements, Nexsan DeDupe SG 2.0 features support for Symantec's OpenStorage (OST) protocol, which accelerates data ingestion speeds for the increased performance and efficiency that today's mid-sized enterprises need.
Nexsan’s Assureon Secure Disk Archive is based upon a combination of CAS (Content Addressable Storage) with advanced 256-bit AES encryption and other security and data protection technologies. CAS technology produces a unique file identifier or "fingerprint" for all objects, based on their content. Assureon's object storage model stores files, images, recordings, web pages, etc, as objects with a unique universal identifier. This approach differs from traditional file system models, where an application or user names the file and then places it in a hierarchical file system. Traditional file system models suffer from a lack of scalability and a high management cost.
The article also provides a summary of data deduplication systems and technologies to meet a variety of organizational requirements. To read this article in its entirety, go to: http://www.nexsan.com/news/articles.php
For parties interested in Nexsan, Midrange Array, MAID Storage, Storage Systems, Storage Solutions, SATA RAID, Storage Array, Green Storage, Enterprise Storage, Energy Efficient Storage, RAID storage
Computerworld Data Reduction Feature Highlights Nexsan Assureon and DeDupe SG - http://www.nexsan.com/news/articles.php
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide Webinar Covers the Industry’s First Comprehensive, Competitive Analysis of Midrange Data Storage Solutions from a User’s Perspective
Free Registration Now Open for Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide Webinar at www.nexsan.com/DCIG_OnDemand_Webinar
Nexsan, a leading storage system provider, is sponsoring an on-demand webinar that discusses findings of the analyst firm’s 2010 Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide. This webinar provides a detailed recap of what Guide reveals are the best data storage solutions for midsize organizations. The webinar features DCIG President and Lead Analyst Jerome M. Wendt, who shares how he evaluated and ranked more than 70 solutions from 20 of the top storage system providers.
The webinar also provides tips on to how to use the DCIG Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide, including what the levels and ratings mean, and which category storage solution suits specific needs. In addition, Wendt answers questions about the process, methodology and importance of undertaking this type of study.
Registration for this webinar is free and can be accessed at www.nexsan.com/DCIG_OnDemand_Webinar
Nexsan, a leading storage system provider, is sponsoring an on-demand webinar that discusses findings of the analyst firm’s 2010 Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide. This webinar provides a detailed recap of what Guide reveals are the best data storage solutions for midsize organizations. The webinar features DCIG President and Lead Analyst Jerome M. Wendt, who shares how he evaluated and ranked more than 70 solutions from 20 of the top storage system providers.
The webinar also provides tips on to how to use the DCIG Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide, including what the levels and ratings mean, and which category storage solution suits specific needs. In addition, Wendt answers questions about the process, methodology and importance of undertaking this type of study.
Registration for this webinar is free and can be accessed at www.nexsan.com/DCIG_OnDemand_Webinar
Monday, August 30, 2010
AFS Technologies Exceeds Reliability and Performance Requirements at One-Third the Cost
AFS Technologies selects Nexsan to implement a robust data protection strategy and high-performance primary storage environment for the company’s heavy-volume, transactional SQL Server application
AFS Technologies Inc. is a leading provider of business enterprise and on-demand software solutions. The company serves over 1,200 customers across the Americas with a portfolio of software solutions for food, beverage, and financial enterprises. AFS Food and Beverage solutions are designed to reduce costs, improve efficiency, increase sales and margins, streamline internal processes and assist in regulatory compliance. AFS Financial Solutions address the complex issues related to revenue recognition as part of a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) system including general ledger, accounts receivable and accounts payable.
All AFS solutions use a service-oriented architecture (SOA) built with Microsoft .NET framework technology. To match the needs of its diverse customer base, products are available on both a license and true software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis.
Business Challenge: Replace Existing Storage Arrays to Increase Capacity and Performance While Reducing Capital Costs
With a sophisticated SaaS infrastructure and a very active customer base, AFS Technologies’ data was growing at a rapid rate, stretching the existing disk-to-disk-to-tape backup and recovery environment on their StorageTek SATA arrays. With more than 23 TB of data, there was no room for future growth since they reached their capacity limit. AFS Technologies needed to find a reliable storage solution that could deliver the scalability the company needed to meet both its existing and future storage requirements. Reliability and cost efficiency were also key criteria for this growing on-demand software company.
“Adding more StorageTek arrays wasn’t an option,” said Michael Mulligan, network operations manager, AFS Technologies. “It would be simply too costly . We needed to find a lower-cost option that delivered the high reliability and performance we needed to protect our customers’ critical data while also giving us the scalability to support our continued growth into the future.”
Solution: Nexsan SATABoy and SASBoy Highly Efficient Storage Solutions
Once AFS Technologies identified that adding more StorageTek arrays would be cost prohibitive, the company began to evaluate other options and found Nexsan. The Nexsan SATABoy storage units could deliver expandable storage for AFS Technologies’ 23 TB of data at one-third the cost of adding additional StorageTek arrays. SATABoy also fully supported the company’s Tivoli File Manager backup environment and delivered higher performance that made it easier to meet recovery time objectives (RTOs).
AFS Technologies installed two Nexsan SATABoy units in a disk-to-disk-to-tape configuration using their existing tape libraries as the final archive. The primary SATABoy is set up at a co-location site where all of the data is backed up. A secondary SATABoy, in an AFS Technologies location, is configured to replicate data from the SATABoy backup target for disaster recovery assurance.
Because the Nexsan systems performed so reliably, AFS Technologies also installed a Nexsan SASBoy at its co-location site to handle the backend storage processes for its SQL Server database. The SQL Server data is continuously online and accessed by AFS Technologies’ end-user customers for ordering and other customer operations. As such, performance and reliability were critical requirements. The SASBoy met all their requirements with 15K SAS drive performance and high reliability.
“The Nexsan systems have proven to be exceptionally reliable,” said Mulligan. “The SASBoy, in particular, is well suited for our high-transaction database, which needs to remain up and running at all times. Nexsan delivered it all by giving us the performance, scalability and reliability our environment required within the parameters of our strict IT budget.”
Results: Nexsan Solutions Deliver Higher Performance and Reliability for One - Third the Cost
The Nexsan SATABoy and SASBoy systems have given AFS Technologies higher performance storage and reliability at one-third the cost of a replacement StorageTek system while delivering scalability to meet the company’s future storage needs. The Nexsan systems also assure that critical business data is secure in the event of a disaster or server outage.
Benefits AFS Technologies receives from Nexsan’s highly efficient storage solutions include:
• High Performance. The SATABoy and SASBoy systems are high-performance RAID solutions built around the latest high-capacity SATA and SAS disk drives, respectively.
• High Capacity. Each SATABoy and SASBoy storage system provides 14 drives in only three units of rack space.
• High Reliability. The Nexsan storage systems offer fully redundant and individually hot-swappable active components (RAID controllers, fans, power supplies and disks) along with innovative design for vibration reduction and cooling.
• High Power Efficiency. All Nexsan storage comes standard with AutoMAID® energy-saving technology that reduces power consumption up to 60% without penalizing storage performance.
“Nexsan impressed us with their reliability, performance and value,” noted Mulligan. “Their systems delivered everything we needed and more for a fraction of the price.”
Results: Nexsan Solutions Deliver Higher Performance and Reliability for One-Third the Cost
The Nexsan SATABoy and SASBoy systems have given AFS Technologies higher performance storage and reliability at one-third the cost of a replacement StorageTek system while delivering scalability to meet the company’s future storage needs. The Nexsan systems also assure that critical business data is secure in the event of a disaster or server outage.
Benefits AFS Technologies receives from Nexsan’s highly efficient storage solutions include:
• High Performance. The SATABoy and SASBoy systems are high-performance RAID solutions built around the latest high-capacity SATA and SAS disk drives, respectively.
• High Capacity. Each SATABoy and SASBoy storage system provides 14 drives in only three units of rack space.
• High Reliability. The Nexsan storage systems offer fully redundant and individually hot-swappable active components (RAID controllers, fans, power supplies and disks) along with innovative design for vibration reduction and cooling.
• High Power Efficiency. All Nexsan storage comes standard with AutoMAID® energy-saving technology that reduces power consumption up to 60% without penalizing storage performance.
“Nexsan impressed us with their reliability, performance and value,” noted Mulligan. “Their systems delivered everything we needed and more for a fraction of the price.”
Nexsan Corporation is a leading provider of energy-efficient, long-term storage systems. Nexsan delivers secure storage appliances and modular, capacity-optimized disk-storage systems for a broad range of applications including fixed content storage and archiving, email, medical imaging, compliance and litigation support, disk-based backup, digital video security, and rich media.
Nexsan’s solutions are the choice of small and medium-sized companies as well as large global enterprises and major governmental agencies around the world who are seeking cost-correct, high density storage solutions. Founded in 1999 and based in Thousand, Oaks, Calif., Nexsan sells its products exclusively through a select global network of VARs, OEMs and system integrators. For more information, please see the company’s website at www.nexsan.com.
Read this case study in its entirety at http://www.nexsan.com/case_studies/Nexsan_CaseStudy_AFS_Technologies.pdf
AFS Technologies Inc. is a leading provider of business enterprise and on-demand software solutions. The company serves over 1,200 customers across the Americas with a portfolio of software solutions for food, beverage, and financial enterprises. AFS Food and Beverage solutions are designed to reduce costs, improve efficiency, increase sales and margins, streamline internal processes and assist in regulatory compliance. AFS Financial Solutions address the complex issues related to revenue recognition as part of a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) system including general ledger, accounts receivable and accounts payable.
All AFS solutions use a service-oriented architecture (SOA) built with Microsoft .NET framework technology. To match the needs of its diverse customer base, products are available on both a license and true software-as-a-service (SaaS) basis.
Business Challenge: Replace Existing Storage Arrays to Increase Capacity and Performance While Reducing Capital Costs
With a sophisticated SaaS infrastructure and a very active customer base, AFS Technologies’ data was growing at a rapid rate, stretching the existing disk-to-disk-to-tape backup and recovery environment on their StorageTek SATA arrays. With more than 23 TB of data, there was no room for future growth since they reached their capacity limit. AFS Technologies needed to find a reliable storage solution that could deliver the scalability the company needed to meet both its existing and future storage requirements. Reliability and cost efficiency were also key criteria for this growing on-demand software company.
“Adding more StorageTek arrays wasn’t an option,” said Michael Mulligan, network operations manager, AFS Technologies. “It would be simply too costly . We needed to find a lower-cost option that delivered the high reliability and performance we needed to protect our customers’ critical data while also giving us the scalability to support our continued growth into the future.”
Solution: Nexsan SATABoy and SASBoy Highly Efficient Storage Solutions
Once AFS Technologies identified that adding more StorageTek arrays would be cost prohibitive, the company began to evaluate other options and found Nexsan. The Nexsan SATABoy storage units could deliver expandable storage for AFS Technologies’ 23 TB of data at one-third the cost of adding additional StorageTek arrays. SATABoy also fully supported the company’s Tivoli File Manager backup environment and delivered higher performance that made it easier to meet recovery time objectives (RTOs).
AFS Technologies installed two Nexsan SATABoy units in a disk-to-disk-to-tape configuration using their existing tape libraries as the final archive. The primary SATABoy is set up at a co-location site where all of the data is backed up. A secondary SATABoy, in an AFS Technologies location, is configured to replicate data from the SATABoy backup target for disaster recovery assurance.
Because the Nexsan systems performed so reliably, AFS Technologies also installed a Nexsan SASBoy at its co-location site to handle the backend storage processes for its SQL Server database. The SQL Server data is continuously online and accessed by AFS Technologies’ end-user customers for ordering and other customer operations. As such, performance and reliability were critical requirements. The SASBoy met all their requirements with 15K SAS drive performance and high reliability.
“The Nexsan systems have proven to be exceptionally reliable,” said Mulligan. “The SASBoy, in particular, is well suited for our high-transaction database, which needs to remain up and running at all times. Nexsan delivered it all by giving us the performance, scalability and reliability our environment required within the parameters of our strict IT budget.”
Results: Nexsan Solutions Deliver Higher Performance and Reliability for One - Third the Cost
The Nexsan SATABoy and SASBoy systems have given AFS Technologies higher performance storage and reliability at one-third the cost of a replacement StorageTek system while delivering scalability to meet the company’s future storage needs. The Nexsan systems also assure that critical business data is secure in the event of a disaster or server outage.
Benefits AFS Technologies receives from Nexsan’s highly efficient storage solutions include:
• High Performance. The SATABoy and SASBoy systems are high-performance RAID solutions built around the latest high-capacity SATA and SAS disk drives, respectively.
• High Capacity. Each SATABoy and SASBoy storage system provides 14 drives in only three units of rack space.
• High Reliability. The Nexsan storage systems offer fully redundant and individually hot-swappable active components (RAID controllers, fans, power supplies and disks) along with innovative design for vibration reduction and cooling.
• High Power Efficiency. All Nexsan storage comes standard with AutoMAID® energy-saving technology that reduces power consumption up to 60% without penalizing storage performance.
“Nexsan impressed us with their reliability, performance and value,” noted Mulligan. “Their systems delivered everything we needed and more for a fraction of the price.”
Results: Nexsan Solutions Deliver Higher Performance and Reliability for One-Third the Cost
The Nexsan SATABoy and SASBoy systems have given AFS Technologies higher performance storage and reliability at one-third the cost of a replacement StorageTek system while delivering scalability to meet the company’s future storage needs. The Nexsan systems also assure that critical business data is secure in the event of a disaster or server outage.
Benefits AFS Technologies receives from Nexsan’s highly efficient storage solutions include:
• High Performance. The SATABoy and SASBoy systems are high-performance RAID solutions built around the latest high-capacity SATA and SAS disk drives, respectively.
• High Capacity. Each SATABoy and SASBoy storage system provides 14 drives in only three units of rack space.
• High Reliability. The Nexsan storage systems offer fully redundant and individually hot-swappable active components (RAID controllers, fans, power supplies and disks) along with innovative design for vibration reduction and cooling.
• High Power Efficiency. All Nexsan storage comes standard with AutoMAID® energy-saving technology that reduces power consumption up to 60% without penalizing storage performance.
“Nexsan impressed us with their reliability, performance and value,” noted Mulligan. “Their systems delivered everything we needed and more for a fraction of the price.”
Nexsan Corporation is a leading provider of energy-efficient, long-term storage systems. Nexsan delivers secure storage appliances and modular, capacity-optimized disk-storage systems for a broad range of applications including fixed content storage and archiving, email, medical imaging, compliance and litigation support, disk-based backup, digital video security, and rich media.
Nexsan’s solutions are the choice of small and medium-sized companies as well as large global enterprises and major governmental agencies around the world who are seeking cost-correct, high density storage solutions. Founded in 1999 and based in Thousand, Oaks, Calif., Nexsan sells its products exclusively through a select global network of VARs, OEMs and system integrators. For more information, please see the company’s website at www.nexsan.com.
Read this case study in its entirety at http://www.nexsan.com/case_studies/Nexsan_CaseStudy_AFS_Technologies.pdf
Legal Consulting Firm Increases Business Performance and Reduces Storage Operating Costs by 40% with Nexsan
Nexsan Delivers Solutions to Improve Performance and Reduce Costs by 40%
Customer Overview
With offices in Washington DC and San Diego, Calif., Bates White is a consulting firm offering services in economics, finance and business strategy to leading law firms, Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. Bates White provides the latest empirical and theoretical technologies to data mining and processing that bring clarity to complex issues which, in turn, enable their clients to make more informed decisions.
Business Challenge: Eliminate The Storage Performance Bottlenecks Impacting Business Performance
At Bates White, storage system performance bottlenecks were having a serious impact on business productivity. Sluggish primary storage performance and maintenance issues were slowing the company’s response to customer requests, which impacted overall business productivity. In addition, the firm’s traditional tape backup solution had become very cumbersome, and it was becoming difficult to effectively protect data within an ever shrinking backup window. Bates White needed to optimize storage response times, ensure disaster recovery and implement a highly reliable solution without adding heavy costs or complex management requirements.
One of Bates White’s core customer services is the electronic discovery of client data. To perform this service, client data is imported into the Bates White data center where the company conducts detailed legal research across securely stored client information. With growing archives of data, the storage system bottlenecks and business-constraining performance issues were having a negative impact on customer service. Researchers were faced with slow system response times which impacted productivity and extended customer delivery dates due to storage-related delays. This drove the organization to seek a higher performing and more efficient storage solution to ensure better access to customer data and protect more than 100 TB of data.
“We needed to quickly remedy performance bottlenecks experienced with our previous solution so that we could deliver client results more quickly,” said Larry Chou, network manager, Bates White.
In addition to performance and reliability, Bates White needed a solution that would be easy to operate and manage so they could reduce management demands on staff resources.
Solution: Two Nexsan SATABeasts for Secondary Storage and a Nexsan SASBeast for Primary Storage
To solve its storage performance challenges, Bates White first selected two Nexsan SATABeasts for reliable, high speed backup and recovery of client data. Later, Bates White selected Nexsan’s SASBeast to provide primary data storage to their client SQL Server data. With their storage performance and reliability issues resolved, Bates White was able to efficiently review and analyze client data and increase overall productivity.
“The Nexsan SATABeast delivered a very powerful, reliable and easy to use solution for our secondary storage,” said Chou. “The SATABeast experiences lead us to the SASBeast extending the same benefits to our primary storage applications. We initially thought that we might have to look at two separate vendors to meet our storage needs, but Nexsan solved them both. The SASBeast easily met our primary storage requirements by consolidating everything into a high-performance SAS solution.”
Results: Increased Storage Performance and Reliability with a 40% Reduction in Storage Operating Costs
Since installing the systems a year ago, Bates White has seen exceptional storage performance and reliability. They have also seen dramatic cost savings. Both the SASBeast and SATABeast delivered an exceptionally low capital cost expenditure compared to other solutions. In addition, operating expenses were significantly reduced with the SATABeast when compared to the high management issues associated with their previous tape backup solution. Together, Bates White has been able to reduce their annual cost savings by an estimated 40%.
The high storage density of the systems reduced the need to purchase additional storage that was previously projected to meet increasing capacity demands. In addition, simplified management operations freed staff resources for other IT tasks. And by eliminating the storage performance bottlenecks that constrained the business, Bates White was able to deliver client results much more quickly.
About Nexsan
Nexsan Corporation is a leading provider of energy-efficient, long-term storage systems. Nexsan delivers secure storage appliances and modular, capacity-optimized disk-storage systems for a broad range of applications including fixed content storage and archiving, email, medical imaging, compliance and litigation support, disk-based backup, digital video security, and rich media. Nexsan’s solutions are the choice of small and medium-sized companies as well as large global enterprises and major governmental agencies around the world who are seeking cost-correct, high density storage solutions. Founded in 1999 and based in Thousand, Oaks, Calif., Nexsan sells its products exclusively through a select global network of VARs, OEMs and system integrators. For more information, please see the company’s website at www.nexsan.com
Read this case study in its entirety at http://www.nexsan.com/case_studies/Nexsan_CaseStudy_BatesWhite_GA012810-A.pdf
Customer Overview
With offices in Washington DC and San Diego, Calif., Bates White is a consulting firm offering services in economics, finance and business strategy to leading law firms, Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. Bates White provides the latest empirical and theoretical technologies to data mining and processing that bring clarity to complex issues which, in turn, enable their clients to make more informed decisions.
Business Challenge: Eliminate The Storage Performance Bottlenecks Impacting Business Performance
At Bates White, storage system performance bottlenecks were having a serious impact on business productivity. Sluggish primary storage performance and maintenance issues were slowing the company’s response to customer requests, which impacted overall business productivity. In addition, the firm’s traditional tape backup solution had become very cumbersome, and it was becoming difficult to effectively protect data within an ever shrinking backup window. Bates White needed to optimize storage response times, ensure disaster recovery and implement a highly reliable solution without adding heavy costs or complex management requirements.
One of Bates White’s core customer services is the electronic discovery of client data. To perform this service, client data is imported into the Bates White data center where the company conducts detailed legal research across securely stored client information. With growing archives of data, the storage system bottlenecks and business-constraining performance issues were having a negative impact on customer service. Researchers were faced with slow system response times which impacted productivity and extended customer delivery dates due to storage-related delays. This drove the organization to seek a higher performing and more efficient storage solution to ensure better access to customer data and protect more than 100 TB of data.
“We needed to quickly remedy performance bottlenecks experienced with our previous solution so that we could deliver client results more quickly,” said Larry Chou, network manager, Bates White.
In addition to performance and reliability, Bates White needed a solution that would be easy to operate and manage so they could reduce management demands on staff resources.
Solution: Two Nexsan SATABeasts for Secondary Storage and a Nexsan SASBeast for Primary Storage
To solve its storage performance challenges, Bates White first selected two Nexsan SATABeasts for reliable, high speed backup and recovery of client data. Later, Bates White selected Nexsan’s SASBeast to provide primary data storage to their client SQL Server data. With their storage performance and reliability issues resolved, Bates White was able to efficiently review and analyze client data and increase overall productivity.
“The Nexsan SATABeast delivered a very powerful, reliable and easy to use solution for our secondary storage,” said Chou. “The SATABeast experiences lead us to the SASBeast extending the same benefits to our primary storage applications. We initially thought that we might have to look at two separate vendors to meet our storage needs, but Nexsan solved them both. The SASBeast easily met our primary storage requirements by consolidating everything into a high-performance SAS solution.”
Results: Increased Storage Performance and Reliability with a 40% Reduction in Storage Operating Costs
Since installing the systems a year ago, Bates White has seen exceptional storage performance and reliability. They have also seen dramatic cost savings. Both the SASBeast and SATABeast delivered an exceptionally low capital cost expenditure compared to other solutions. In addition, operating expenses were significantly reduced with the SATABeast when compared to the high management issues associated with their previous tape backup solution. Together, Bates White has been able to reduce their annual cost savings by an estimated 40%.
The high storage density of the systems reduced the need to purchase additional storage that was previously projected to meet increasing capacity demands. In addition, simplified management operations freed staff resources for other IT tasks. And by eliminating the storage performance bottlenecks that constrained the business, Bates White was able to deliver client results much more quickly.
About Nexsan
Nexsan Corporation is a leading provider of energy-efficient, long-term storage systems. Nexsan delivers secure storage appliances and modular, capacity-optimized disk-storage systems for a broad range of applications including fixed content storage and archiving, email, medical imaging, compliance and litigation support, disk-based backup, digital video security, and rich media. Nexsan’s solutions are the choice of small and medium-sized companies as well as large global enterprises and major governmental agencies around the world who are seeking cost-correct, high density storage solutions. Founded in 1999 and based in Thousand, Oaks, Calif., Nexsan sells its products exclusively through a select global network of VARs, OEMs and system integrators. For more information, please see the company’s website at www.nexsan.com
Read this case study in its entirety at http://www.nexsan.com/case_studies/Nexsan_CaseStudy_BatesWhite_GA012810-A.pdf
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
IPR International Improves Data Security and Availability While Lowering Overall Costs by 40% with Nexsan
Nexsan’s Assureon online archive gives IPR the reliability and compliance-level privacy it needs to deliver high data availability to its customers while reducing overall costs by 40%
Leading disaster recovery and data protection service provider IPR International was facing growing operational and capital costs associated with its data archive infrastructure for customer emails and unstructured files. Needing to lower overall costs without risking the high service-level they guarantee their demanding customer base, IPR turned to Nexsan. Nexsan’s Assureon online archive has given IPR the reliability and compliance-level privacy it needed to deliver high data availability to its customers while reducing overall costs by 40%.
Headquartered in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, and serving clients in 17 countries, IPR International was founded on a simple concept: that technology will change at such a rapid pace that most mid-size organizations will not be able to keep up with it. Thus, the company has dedicated itself to providing state-of-the-art data protection technologies, so clients can focus on their core business operations knowing their electronic data is safe and accessible at all times.
A recognized leader in managed data center and data protection services, IPR International offers a comprehensive suite of solutions to protect, preserve, secure and make available clients’ data at all times. By offering constantly improving and evolving services combined with a passion for security, integrity, availability and ingenuity, IPR helps its clients maintain their own business operations and supports them through any interruptions.
For IPR, the service levels offered to their customers are critical. While governments and corporations alike require that data be kept for extended periods of time, and in a retrievable form, inactive data can have a negative impact on the performance of the production environment. To help solve these challenges, IPR needed a robust archiving solution that would satisfy operational, performance and compliance requirements for its clients.
“Our customers need to reduce the capital and operational costs of managing and archiving data,” said Kevin Sullivan, head of services, development and marketing, IPR International. “Additionally, our customers need to improve their compliance posture by using a service where they can reallocate their IT resources for other, more strategically important objectives. We created our DataGuardian® service to meet these increasing customer demands.”
With customers ranging from mid-sized law firms and insurance companies to healthcare organizations, IPR takes its DataGuardian service levels very seriously. These types of organizations require constant access to their email and unstructured file data while being prepared to recover from any disaster, from simple server outages to extensive unexpected natural events. To meet backend storage needs, IPR was using a combination of NetApp and EMC SANs. However, the infrastructure was becoming increasingly costly and difficult to manage as the volume of customer data increased. To maintain very high service levels for their customers without incurring extensive costs, IPR needed to identify an alternative archiving solution upon which to base its DataGuardian service.
Solution: A Comprehensive Archiving and Failover Strategy Based on Nexsan’s Assureon and SATABeast Systems
After evaluating the high cost of expanding its existing infrastructure, IPR began to look for a highly reliable, lower cost alternative. During their search, IPR evaluated a number of solutions, including those from Nexsan and EMC. IPR selected Nexsan’s Assureon archiving platform over Centera because of the flexibility in configuring redundancy. With Centera, two copies are required at both the local and disaster recovery site in order to ensure redundancy.
Replicating to another Centera would mean having four copies of archived data (two at each site) instead of one per site. While Assureon can be configured similarly, it also allows administrators to configure the systems so that only a single copy is stored on each Assureon while ensuring the highest levels of data protection. IPR still maintains two copies of the data, but they are at two locations in order to provide DR protection. IPR deployed two Assureon appliances, each with two SATABeast systems, connected via 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel. Each Assureon / SATABeast combination is installed at separate IPR locations and set to failover to the other in case of any failure. With Assureon, IPR has doubled its usable capacity over Centera while spending less on purchase costs and operating expenses. Nexsan’s Assureon storage appliances provide IPR with a safe, cost-effective means to archive the growing volumes of customer email. The appliances keep email online and rapidly retrievable so that customers always have access to them. At the same time, the Assureon appliances dramatically reduce the time required to back-up current, active email by offloading archived email into a separate repository. “We were very impressed with the reliability and flexibility of the Nexsan solution,” said Sullivan. “Assureon is delivered as an appliance, with the storage, and Nexsan remotely connects, monitors and performs automatic updates on the systems without our staff involvement, which makes these systems exceptionally easy to administer.”
Results: High Performance and Reliability Means Strong Customer Satisfaction
The Nexsan Assureon solution has reduced IPR’s overall capital and operating expenses by 40% compared to expanding their previous solution. Cost savings have come from replacing NetApp Filers and EMC Celerra NAS systems (traditional iSCSI and CIFS storage) with the Assureon CAS storage archive. With Assureon, Nexsan has delivered the most efficient and scalable approach to storing unstructured data (email and documents).
In addition, the Nexsan-based storage infrastructure ensures that IPR can deliver high service-level guarantees to its customers while knowing that it has the scalability to easily grow its storage capacity to meet future customer needs. Benefits IPR has received from its Nexsan-based archiving infrastructure include:
• Compliance-level privacy – Assureon uses innovative security features to ensure data privacy. The software establishes an unalterable audit trail for the life of data in the archive; every time archive content is accessed, a record is kept of who accessed it and when.
• High-availability storage – Supporting the innovative Assureon appliance is Nexsan’s highly reliable SATABeast green storage, which provides redundant controllers, power supplies and fans along with support for RAID 6 to overcome double drive failures.
• Automated retention and deletion – Assureon offers automated integrity management and file immutability technology that protect against accidental or unauthorized file deletion. This ensures that files can be retained for regulation compliance or flexible time periods, and be deleted when their retention period is over.
• Self-auditing and self-healing – Assureon continually monitors files for fingerprint discrepancies, protecting them against tampering, viruses and corruption as well as accidental or deliberate deletion or theft. If discrepancies are discovered, Assureon notifies the system administrator and self-heals the file.
“Nexsan has greatly reduced the IT resources required to deliver recovery services thereby improving overall cost-efficiency for clients,” said Sullivan. “We are happy to have selected Assureon as our archiving platform and very content with what the solution has allowed us to do.”
About IPR
IPR was founded as one of the first Managed Electronic Data Protection Service Providers in the United States and is one of the very few companies to have developed and deployed a complete set of services to protect its clients’ data. Currently, IPR protects data for over 240 clients in 17 countries around the globe, providing protection for over 2.5 petabytes of data in our Data Centers. With the opening of the IPR Reading Business Continuity Center in 2008 and the Wilmington Data Center in 2010, IPR has expanded its Managed Data Center and Infrastructure Services to include production and dedicated recovery computing environments for our clients. IPR enjoys a 97% client retention rate, as well as 40% annual growth per year. IPR has been named one of “Fastest Growing Companies” in the Philadelphia Region (“Philadelphia 100”) in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009 and Inc. Magazine ranked IPR as number 593 on its first-ever“ Inc. 5000” list of the Fastest-Growing Private Companies in 2007.
Read this case study in its entirety at http://www.nexsan.com/case_studies/Nexsan_CaseStudy_IPR_International.pdf
END
Leading disaster recovery and data protection service provider IPR International was facing growing operational and capital costs associated with its data archive infrastructure for customer emails and unstructured files. Needing to lower overall costs without risking the high service-level they guarantee their demanding customer base, IPR turned to Nexsan. Nexsan’s Assureon online archive has given IPR the reliability and compliance-level privacy it needed to deliver high data availability to its customers while reducing overall costs by 40%.
Headquartered in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, and serving clients in 17 countries, IPR International was founded on a simple concept: that technology will change at such a rapid pace that most mid-size organizations will not be able to keep up with it. Thus, the company has dedicated itself to providing state-of-the-art data protection technologies, so clients can focus on their core business operations knowing their electronic data is safe and accessible at all times.
A recognized leader in managed data center and data protection services, IPR International offers a comprehensive suite of solutions to protect, preserve, secure and make available clients’ data at all times. By offering constantly improving and evolving services combined with a passion for security, integrity, availability and ingenuity, IPR helps its clients maintain their own business operations and supports them through any interruptions.
For IPR, the service levels offered to their customers are critical. While governments and corporations alike require that data be kept for extended periods of time, and in a retrievable form, inactive data can have a negative impact on the performance of the production environment. To help solve these challenges, IPR needed a robust archiving solution that would satisfy operational, performance and compliance requirements for its clients.
“Our customers need to reduce the capital and operational costs of managing and archiving data,” said Kevin Sullivan, head of services, development and marketing, IPR International. “Additionally, our customers need to improve their compliance posture by using a service where they can reallocate their IT resources for other, more strategically important objectives. We created our DataGuardian® service to meet these increasing customer demands.”
With customers ranging from mid-sized law firms and insurance companies to healthcare organizations, IPR takes its DataGuardian service levels very seriously. These types of organizations require constant access to their email and unstructured file data while being prepared to recover from any disaster, from simple server outages to extensive unexpected natural events. To meet backend storage needs, IPR was using a combination of NetApp and EMC SANs. However, the infrastructure was becoming increasingly costly and difficult to manage as the volume of customer data increased. To maintain very high service levels for their customers without incurring extensive costs, IPR needed to identify an alternative archiving solution upon which to base its DataGuardian service.
Solution: A Comprehensive Archiving and Failover Strategy Based on Nexsan’s Assureon and SATABeast Systems
After evaluating the high cost of expanding its existing infrastructure, IPR began to look for a highly reliable, lower cost alternative. During their search, IPR evaluated a number of solutions, including those from Nexsan and EMC. IPR selected Nexsan’s Assureon archiving platform over Centera because of the flexibility in configuring redundancy. With Centera, two copies are required at both the local and disaster recovery site in order to ensure redundancy.
Replicating to another Centera would mean having four copies of archived data (two at each site) instead of one per site. While Assureon can be configured similarly, it also allows administrators to configure the systems so that only a single copy is stored on each Assureon while ensuring the highest levels of data protection. IPR still maintains two copies of the data, but they are at two locations in order to provide DR protection. IPR deployed two Assureon appliances, each with two SATABeast systems, connected via 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel. Each Assureon / SATABeast combination is installed at separate IPR locations and set to failover to the other in case of any failure. With Assureon, IPR has doubled its usable capacity over Centera while spending less on purchase costs and operating expenses. Nexsan’s Assureon storage appliances provide IPR with a safe, cost-effective means to archive the growing volumes of customer email. The appliances keep email online and rapidly retrievable so that customers always have access to them. At the same time, the Assureon appliances dramatically reduce the time required to back-up current, active email by offloading archived email into a separate repository. “We were very impressed with the reliability and flexibility of the Nexsan solution,” said Sullivan. “Assureon is delivered as an appliance, with the storage, and Nexsan remotely connects, monitors and performs automatic updates on the systems without our staff involvement, which makes these systems exceptionally easy to administer.”
Results: High Performance and Reliability Means Strong Customer Satisfaction
The Nexsan Assureon solution has reduced IPR’s overall capital and operating expenses by 40% compared to expanding their previous solution. Cost savings have come from replacing NetApp Filers and EMC Celerra NAS systems (traditional iSCSI and CIFS storage) with the Assureon CAS storage archive. With Assureon, Nexsan has delivered the most efficient and scalable approach to storing unstructured data (email and documents).
In addition, the Nexsan-based storage infrastructure ensures that IPR can deliver high service-level guarantees to its customers while knowing that it has the scalability to easily grow its storage capacity to meet future customer needs. Benefits IPR has received from its Nexsan-based archiving infrastructure include:
• Compliance-level privacy – Assureon uses innovative security features to ensure data privacy. The software establishes an unalterable audit trail for the life of data in the archive; every time archive content is accessed, a record is kept of who accessed it and when.
• High-availability storage – Supporting the innovative Assureon appliance is Nexsan’s highly reliable SATABeast green storage, which provides redundant controllers, power supplies and fans along with support for RAID 6 to overcome double drive failures.
• Automated retention and deletion – Assureon offers automated integrity management and file immutability technology that protect against accidental or unauthorized file deletion. This ensures that files can be retained for regulation compliance or flexible time periods, and be deleted when their retention period is over.
• Self-auditing and self-healing – Assureon continually monitors files for fingerprint discrepancies, protecting them against tampering, viruses and corruption as well as accidental or deliberate deletion or theft. If discrepancies are discovered, Assureon notifies the system administrator and self-heals the file.
“Nexsan has greatly reduced the IT resources required to deliver recovery services thereby improving overall cost-efficiency for clients,” said Sullivan. “We are happy to have selected Assureon as our archiving platform and very content with what the solution has allowed us to do.”
About IPR
IPR was founded as one of the first Managed Electronic Data Protection Service Providers in the United States and is one of the very few companies to have developed and deployed a complete set of services to protect its clients’ data. Currently, IPR protects data for over 240 clients in 17 countries around the globe, providing protection for over 2.5 petabytes of data in our Data Centers. With the opening of the IPR Reading Business Continuity Center in 2008 and the Wilmington Data Center in 2010, IPR has expanded its Managed Data Center and Infrastructure Services to include production and dedicated recovery computing environments for our clients. IPR enjoys a 97% client retention rate, as well as 40% annual growth per year. IPR has been named one of “Fastest Growing Companies” in the Philadelphia Region (“Philadelphia 100”) in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009 and Inc. Magazine ranked IPR as number 593 on its first-ever“ Inc. 5000” list of the Fastest-Growing Private Companies in 2007.
Read this case study in its entirety at http://www.nexsan.com/case_studies/Nexsan_CaseStudy_IPR_International.pdf
END
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Nexsan CTO Gary Watson Named 2010 Storage Superstar by CRN Magazine
Mr. Watson Honored for a Decade of Innovations in Disk Storage Technology
Thousand Oaks, Calif., July 27, 2010 — Nexsan, a leading storage system provider, today announced that its Chief Technology Officer Gary Watson has been chosen as a “2010 Storage Superstar” by CRN Magazine. The CRN Storage Superstar awards recognize the achievements and contributions of visionaries and innovators in the data storage industry.
CRN recognized Mr. Watson for more than a decade of achievements and his consistent breakthroughs in disk-based storage technology. Mr. Watson co-founded Nexsan in 1999 and spearheaded the development of the industry's first enterprise-class ATA storage arrays. He was also responsible for the first ATA-based disk storage systems to rival tape ushering in affordable disk-to-disk backup. Mr. Watson is also credited with developing the first RAID system with an embedded web GUI for simple remote management.
Mr. Watson’s achievements include advanced power-managed storage with AutoMAID® (Automatic Massive Array of Idle Disks) technology enabling energy-efficient disk storage for use in primary, backup and archive storage environments. Nexsan’s power-managed storage systems serve as the foundation for the company’s innovative storage applications like data deduplication. Leveraging AutoMAID, organizations reduce storage related energy costs as much as 60% while lowering data center cooling requirements for green IT efficiencies.
Mr. Watson has also delivered innovations to enhance the reliability of high density storage systems. Examples of these developments include rotational vibration dampening for enhanced disk drive longevity, the use of engineered materials to absorb vibration and reduce mechanical failures, and advanced cooling designs. As a result, customers benefit from reliable storage system performance that significantly lowers maintenance related downtime.
“Solution providers who design and deploy storage infrastructures deal with a technology where change is the only constant,” said Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel. “Small businesses and enterprises alike need to safely store, back-up, recover and archive data and these Storage Superstars are many of the unsung heroes who have helped invent better ways of doing this. Yet many of these individuals seldom get the recognition they deserve. We congratulate all the ‘Storage Superstars,’ and are happy to provide an opportunity to shine the spotlight on them.”
“This is a wonderful honor from CRN and it validates Nexsan’s vision of leveraging reliable, highly efficient storage designs to deliver enterprise-class storage systems purpose built for the midmarket,” said Mr. Watson. “This innovative approach has established new standards in storage density, energy-efficiency and price/performance.”
Learn more about the entire Nexsan product line at www.nexsan.com/products.php.
Follow Nexsan Products and News on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/nexsan
Resources
CRN Magazine 2010 Storage Superstars
2010 DCIG Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide
Nexsan Products, Case Studies and White Papers
About Nexsan
Nexsan Corporation is a leading provider of energy-efficient, long-term storage systems. Nexsan delivers secure storage appliances and modular, capacity-optimized disk-storage systems for a broad range of applications including fixed content storage and archiving, email, medical imaging, compliance and litigation support, disk-based backup, digital video security, and rich media. Nexsan’s solutions are the choice of small and medium-sized companies as well as large global enterprises and major governmental agencies around the world that are seeking cost-correct, high-density storage solutions. Founded in 1999 and based in Thousand Oaks, California, Nexsan sells its products exclusively through a select global network of VARs, OEMs and system integrators. For more information, please see the company’s website at www.nexsan.com.
About Everything Channel
Everything Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, Everything Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. Everything Channel is a UBM company. To learn more about Everything Channel, visit us at http://www.everythingchannel.com.
# # #
Nexsan Technologies is a registered trademark and AutoMAID is a trademark of Nexsan.
All other product or company names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective owners.
Thousand Oaks, Calif., July 27, 2010 — Nexsan, a leading storage system provider, today announced that its Chief Technology Officer Gary Watson has been chosen as a “2010 Storage Superstar” by CRN Magazine. The CRN Storage Superstar awards recognize the achievements and contributions of visionaries and innovators in the data storage industry.
CRN recognized Mr. Watson for more than a decade of achievements and his consistent breakthroughs in disk-based storage technology. Mr. Watson co-founded Nexsan in 1999 and spearheaded the development of the industry's first enterprise-class ATA storage arrays. He was also responsible for the first ATA-based disk storage systems to rival tape ushering in affordable disk-to-disk backup. Mr. Watson is also credited with developing the first RAID system with an embedded web GUI for simple remote management.
Mr. Watson’s achievements include advanced power-managed storage with AutoMAID® (Automatic Massive Array of Idle Disks) technology enabling energy-efficient disk storage for use in primary, backup and archive storage environments. Nexsan’s power-managed storage systems serve as the foundation for the company’s innovative storage applications like data deduplication. Leveraging AutoMAID, organizations reduce storage related energy costs as much as 60% while lowering data center cooling requirements for green IT efficiencies.
Mr. Watson has also delivered innovations to enhance the reliability of high density storage systems. Examples of these developments include rotational vibration dampening for enhanced disk drive longevity, the use of engineered materials to absorb vibration and reduce mechanical failures, and advanced cooling designs. As a result, customers benefit from reliable storage system performance that significantly lowers maintenance related downtime.
“Solution providers who design and deploy storage infrastructures deal with a technology where change is the only constant,” said Kelley Damore, VP, Editorial Director, Everything Channel. “Small businesses and enterprises alike need to safely store, back-up, recover and archive data and these Storage Superstars are many of the unsung heroes who have helped invent better ways of doing this. Yet many of these individuals seldom get the recognition they deserve. We congratulate all the ‘Storage Superstars,’ and are happy to provide an opportunity to shine the spotlight on them.”
“This is a wonderful honor from CRN and it validates Nexsan’s vision of leveraging reliable, highly efficient storage designs to deliver enterprise-class storage systems purpose built for the midmarket,” said Mr. Watson. “This innovative approach has established new standards in storage density, energy-efficiency and price/performance.”
Learn more about the entire Nexsan product line at www.nexsan.com/products.php.
Follow Nexsan Products and News on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/nexsan
Resources
CRN Magazine 2010 Storage Superstars
2010 DCIG Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide
Nexsan Products, Case Studies and White Papers
About Nexsan
Nexsan Corporation is a leading provider of energy-efficient, long-term storage systems. Nexsan delivers secure storage appliances and modular, capacity-optimized disk-storage systems for a broad range of applications including fixed content storage and archiving, email, medical imaging, compliance and litigation support, disk-based backup, digital video security, and rich media. Nexsan’s solutions are the choice of small and medium-sized companies as well as large global enterprises and major governmental agencies around the world that are seeking cost-correct, high-density storage solutions. Founded in 1999 and based in Thousand Oaks, California, Nexsan sells its products exclusively through a select global network of VARs, OEMs and system integrators. For more information, please see the company’s website at www.nexsan.com.
About Everything Channel
Everything Channel is the premier provider of IT channel-focused events, media, research, consulting, and sales and marketing services. With over 30 years of experience and engagement, Everything Channel has the unmatched channel expertise to execute integrated solutions for technology executives managing partner recruitment, enablement and go-to-market strategy in order to accelerate technology sales. Everything Channel is a UBM company. To learn more about Everything Channel, visit us at http://www.everythingchannel.com.
# # #
Nexsan Technologies is a registered trademark and AutoMAID is a trademark of Nexsan.
All other product or company names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered
trademarks of their respective owners.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Webinar: DCIG Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide
WEBINAR ALERT
Find out what the 2010 DCIG Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide says are the BEST data storage solutions. Over 70 solutions from over 20 providers were evaluated from a user’s perspective in the industry’s first comprehensive competitive analyses. Each was given a detailed feature-for-feature ranking and rating. In the end, Nexsan was found to have the most features and highest performance to meet the needs of even some of the largest enterprise customers, but without the high cost of other solutions.
Get a quick guide to how to use the DCIG Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide including what the levels and rating mean and what category storage solution might suit your needs.
An interview with special guest, DCIG President and Lead Analyst, Jerome M. Wendt reveals how he arrived at the conclusions of the report. He will answer questions about the process, methodology and importance of undertaking this type of study. Find out how Nexsan stacks up to the competition.
Learn about the cost and energy-saving features that weren’t included in the study and how you can benefit from high-performance Nexsan solutions which also offer the lowest total cost of ownership. All in this free one-hour interactive Webinar.
Register Now! Enter your information in the form on the right and you'll receive detailed information at the email address you provide. If you've registered for a previous event, simply enter your email address.
http://www.nexsan.com/DCIG_Webinar
Find out what the 2010 DCIG Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide says are the BEST data storage solutions. Over 70 solutions from over 20 providers were evaluated from a user’s perspective in the industry’s first comprehensive competitive analyses. Each was given a detailed feature-for-feature ranking and rating. In the end, Nexsan was found to have the most features and highest performance to meet the needs of even some of the largest enterprise customers, but without the high cost of other solutions.
Get a quick guide to how to use the DCIG Midrange Array Buyer’s Guide including what the levels and rating mean and what category storage solution might suit your needs.
An interview with special guest, DCIG President and Lead Analyst, Jerome M. Wendt reveals how he arrived at the conclusions of the report. He will answer questions about the process, methodology and importance of undertaking this type of study. Find out how Nexsan stacks up to the competition.
Learn about the cost and energy-saving features that weren’t included in the study and how you can benefit from high-performance Nexsan solutions which also offer the lowest total cost of ownership. All in this free one-hour interactive Webinar.
Register Now! Enter your information in the form on the right and you'll receive detailed information at the email address you provide. If you've registered for a previous event, simply enter your email address.
http://www.nexsan.com/DCIG_Webinar
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