IBM System Storage: Overview
The Problem
As schools rely more heavily on electronically stored information, the amount of data that schools are obliged to hold increases significantly. To resolve this, most schools will purchase and manage an additional server (likely to be an additional domain controller) or some form of basic storage like a NAS Box.
The main drawback to this solution is that the range of data required to be stored is distributed across these additional servers facing the school with increased running costs and complexity. The shortage of storage space means there is no redundancy and, consequently, server failure has an immediate impact.
Consider the following:
- How are you managing your storage? Is it flexible enough to grow when you do?
- Do your students and staff regularly hit their storage quotas?
- How are you managing your backups?
- How much data are you managing?
- How do you see your storage requirements growing over the next two to three years with further DiDA courses being available?
- Do you have redundant access to your data? If your RAID controller fails, will you be able to still access your work?
- Does your storage support virtualisation and high-availability
DS3500IBM Data sheet The 12-bay version of the DS3500, the DS3512:  |
Storwize V3700IBM Data sheet The 24-bay Small Form Factor version of the V3700:  |
The Solution
IBM System Storage paves the way for schools to take advantage of consolidating and sharing their data within a high-performance Fibre Channel (FC) and/or iSCSI SAN offering enterprise-class RAID storage. With mulitple host connectivity options and SAS back-end technology, IBM storage is designed to improve productivity through data consolidation, availability, performance and scalability.