Releases

posted on 18 March 2008 11:19

Ashtead, UK, –18 March 2008 – York St John University has chosen a data archiving solution from BridgeHead Software to support its introduction of an Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) strategy to drive more efficient data management, including meeting compliance requirements and streamlining backup volumes.

The University, which employs approximately 600 staff at its site in York, first began looking at archiving technology to help manage the accelerating growth of file data as Peter Mather, Network Management & Development Officer, explains:

“Our employee file data has expanded by 50 per cent to 600GB in 18 months, with much of the increase being driven by the growing popularity of multimedia files. We were running out of disk space, our full weekly backup was taking up to 14 hours and it was fast getting to the stage where we would need to expand the backup-to-disk system we had installed quite recently.”

During initial discussions with global software company, Quest Software, it was suggested that Mather and his team look at FileStore data archiving software from BridgeHead Software, which is a Quest business partner. It quickly became clear that FileStore could help support an ILM strategy to address the University’s data growth and backup problems by taking much of the static and seldom accessed data off the organisation’s primary store, thereby reducing the cost and management burden.

“We’re currently running a consultation exercise involving various departments within the University to help agree the policies that will underpin our ILM programme,” explained Mather. “Part of this will be about what and how we archive. What data can be automatically transferred to the archive if it hasn’t been modified or accessed for a certain time period? And what will need to be kept on-line for longer? These decisions are yet to be finalised but we’ve estimated that we could possibly archive as much as half the data we currently hold on primary storage.”

The introduction of ILM archiving will also help the University manage data retention in line with compliance requirements under The Data Protection Act and Freedom of Information Act. The ability to intelligently manage retention cycles for data held within the archive was one of the key reasons for selecting FileStore.

Another area that impressed Mather and his team was FileStore’s ‘stubbing’ facility which makes archived data transparent to end users. Data which is removed from the primary store is replaced with a 1KB placeholder or stub which effectively allows end users to access the file content from the archive as if it is still in the live environment. Because the software enables data to be catalogued and indexed before it enters the archive, it can also be possible to perform advanced searches by file content and attribute.

FileStore is a policy based automated storage management system that analyses, monitors, and reports on primary disk utilisation. The system automatically copies and repositions data based on IT policies to a full range of secondary storage targets. IT can define and enforce unlimited rules for any logical data set to ensure that primary disk is optimally utilised and secondary copies of data exist on any combination of media and at multiple locations in compliance with internal and external data availability standards. The system is storage ‘independent’, providing unlimited flexibility for selecting and deploying different types of storage media.

About BridgeHead Software

Established in 1994, BridgeHead Software is focused on developing enterprise data archive software to enhance the ways in which organisations manage their data and storage infrastructures.

The company offers an intelligent approach to investing in and deploying enterprise data storage and simplifying related administrative processes. A key part of the BridgeHead Software philosophy, is remaining storage and vendor agnostic, enabling it to tie into customers’ current and future mix of storage platforms. By the same token it recognises that software solutions have to integrate with and maximize the underlying storage, workflow and business processes that surround customers’ information. To address this, BridgeHead Software has developed strong relationships with key storage and application technology vendors, as well as, leading systems integrators and providers of valued added services, enabling it to deliver fully integrated solutions.

BridgeHead Software Limited, the company’s headquarters, based in Surrey, UK, provides product development, support, training, and consulting services to its established worldwide customer base and growing international channel network; sales, marketing and technical support operations are extended also through its offices in Germany, and USA. www.bridgeheadsoftware.com.

About Quest Software

Quest Software, Inc., Microsoft’s 2007 Global Independent Software Vendor Partner of the Year, delivers innovative products that help organizations get more performance and productivity from their applications, databases and Windows infrastructure. Through a deep expertise in IT operations and a continued focus on what works best, Quest helps more than 50,000 customers worldwide meet higher expectations for enterprise IT. Quest’s Windows Management solutions simplify, automate and secure Active Directory, Exchange Server, SharePoint, SQL Server, .NET and Windows Server as well as integrating Unix, Linux and Java into the managed environment. Quest Software can be found in offices around the globe and at www.quest.com.

^{[Formatted by Majid Soltani.]}