NexStor Increases Capacity at Morecambe Bay Hospital Trust

NexStor Ltd, a storage and server consolidation specialist, has helped improve storage capabilities at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay (UHMBT), through the recommendation and installation of two Spectra LogicCorp.‘s solutions, the nTier Verde and T50e tape drive library.

NexStor selected Spectra Logic because its systems had demonstrated a compatibility with the CommVault Simpana applications already in situ at UHMBT, thus enabling data management and the ability to find, retrieve and access data.

NexStor has built a specialist knowledge of storage and data management solutions including SAN design and implementation, backup and recovery, DR and ILM Solutions utilising technologies to reduce the cost of storing and managing information.

Delivering professional services to clients since 2004, NexStor provides products and solutions from the likes of HP, Dell, Cisco, Sony and EMC and to date has helped companies including world leaders in aero-engine and high technology manufacturing firm, Firth Rixson Ltd and top London law firm, Wedlake Bell LLP, identify and run efficient storage infrastructures.

The deployment of the technology recommended by NexStor has helped this customer address issues related to speed and reliability of data protection as well as backup and archive processes across the hospital’s main infrastructure, located in the North West of England in Barrow, Furness. The storage enhancements instigated by UHMBT form part of a five-year plan of on-going improvements by the NHS Trust, concentrating on IT infrastructure, facilities, cost management and organisational performance.

Serving South Cumbria and North Lancashire, the foundation comprises the Furness General Hospital in Barrow, the Royal Lancaster Infirmary in Lancaster and the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal. With 5,000 strong employees and increasing data demands of up to 25TB, UHMBT needed 24 hour live data access with overnight backups to circumvent any threat of bottlenecks and system slowdowns at peak times during the day. The hospitals needed consistent and reliable email backup, as well as unstructured file data and SQL databases from numerous departmental clinical systems.

Troy Platts, founder and joint MD, NexStor, recalls: “The previous backup-to-disk solution at UHBMT was running at virtually maximum capacity. The hospital needed to migrate to a faster tape storage unit that could handle larger volumes, making nTierVerde the natural choice. I’m pleased to say that the Spectra Logic’s T50e library has also lived up to its reputation of fast, reliable backups and has proved to be a highly dependable unit.“

UHMBT considered other tape solutions suppliers, but with the unbiased recommendations and information provided from NexStor, it found that the Spectra Logic tape, disk and library solution stood out for compatibility and as the best value for money. When combined with Simpana, this custom arrangement eradicates tiered storage complexity, as well as reducing the costs of data protection, management and access. This scalable configuration harmonises into an unified data management platform that tackles performance and storage demands, resulting in fast, reliable backup and secure archiving.

Since the installation, University Hospitals Morecambe Bay is experiencing fast, efficient reliable backups and a secure archiving solution with the capacity to grow with the organisation to meet increasing data requirements.