University of Canterbury adopts IBM enterprise storage solution to enhance user experience

IBM SONAS improves resiliency and usability for staff and students

Auckland, 15 December, 2011: IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that the University of Canterbury (UC) is upgrading its centralised IT storage system with the IBM XIV and SONAS network attached storage arrays, to protect valuable research data and better meet user long term needs, while reducing operational costs.

The purchase of two XIV storage systems and two IBM SONAS network attached storage arrays, for file serving, means UC’s expected data needs will be met for the next five years. IBM’s SONAS uses tools to sort and prioritise data, reducing IT staff support costs, maximising utilisation of storage space and creating better records for compliance purposes.

The new IBM storage solution replicates data across two data centres in adjacent campuses, improving resiliency and risk management. The 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck the Canterbury region in September 2010 accelerated UC’s plans to replace a legacy system to improve the protection of the University’s critical business and research data assets.

The new solution will not only allow them to meets the needs of their existing users but also allow them to consolidate a number of other pools of storage in individual departments, creating larger economies of scale and further reducing costs. It will allow the hosting of large research data sets that has not been possible before and will contribute to enhancing the University’s reputation as a world class learning and teaching environment.

The University also sought to improve data availability, especially in peak times which put further strain on performance, such as between lectures or prior to the end of semester.

Andy Keiller, the University’s IT Operations and Infrastructure Manager, says “Providing timely, secure and reliable access to data for our staff and students is a core service. With IBM SONAS we are now in a position to better understand and meet user expectations, while also reducing overall data management costs for the University community.”

Matt Paterson, New Zealand Manager, IBM Systems & Technology Group says. “Like many universities, UC is experiencing vastly increasing data volumes, including unstructured data which is expensive to manage. Based on advice from IBM business partner Gen-i, UC has selected the highly scalable IBM SONAS to manage and protect its essential data, including years of research and student course work.”

The IBM SONAS implementation will be followed in 2012 by a programme of education to reduce practices that unnecessarily duplicate data, such as repeatedly emailing attachments or saving data to local hard drives rather than the central network.

For further information on IBM, please visit: http://www.ibm.com.

ENDS

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