Storage: Case studies

When it comes to flexible enterprise storage, the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine doesn't horse around. Over the last six months, the college has been putting its 7TB storage area network through its paces, using it for nearline backup and primary storage, and has this insight to share: Storage virtualization is the cat's meow.

A perusal of Internet message boards and online forums shows that fan anticipation of seeing characters from popular Japanese superhero-themed cartoons such as Gatchaman and Astro Boy make the 21st century leap to feature-length computer-generated imagery (CGI) films is reaching a fever pitch.

When Scott Thompson left Visa to take the CTO role at PayPal in 2005, the Web company's data centre surprised him. "Wait a minute," he recalls saying, "they run a payment system on Linux?"

With more than 60 branch offices connected via IP WAN, backing-up data is critical for Sydney City Council.

Like a muscle car driving 55 mph on the freeway, R.L. Polk & Co.'s new grid-based data warehouse boasts gobs of untapped power under the hood, according to Kevin Vasconi, the company's CIO.

As senior director of enterprise technology operations at Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), a prison management firm that handles more than 60 facilities, Brad Wood faces several challenges. His group manages approximately 100TB of data -- including inmate medical records, operational records, e-mail, and so forth -- across four Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) storage arrays in two datacentres. Because of federal and state rules, much of the company's data is mirrored three or four times to keep it accessible in case of failure. Adding to the complexity, Wood buys his hardware based on current price and performance, so he has a mix of suppliers.

With only 320 employees, Barwon Water provides quality water and sewerage services to a permanent population of 250,000 people across an area of more than 8100 square kilometres, while managing 10 major water storage units, 10 water treatment plants and nine sewerage treatment facilities.

Faced with disparate systems, a heterogenous server environment and storage islands at a time when the company was undergoing a period of expansion, superannuation and investment firm AM Corporation had its hands full managing storage.

US health insurer BlueCross BlueShield has spent between US$3 million and $3.5 million over the past three years on a storage-area network (SAN) that includes 40TB of storage.

As chief technology officer at Visa US, which handles 35 billion online transactions annually, Scott Thompson is pummeled with pitches about new networked storage technology that promises to reduce workload and bring a higher return on investment.