Washington and Lee University Embraces Overland’s D2D2T

Overland Storage, Inc.
announced that Washington and Lee University, a
top-ranked college based in Lexington, Va., has deployed complementary REO
SERIES and NEO SERIES disk- and tape-based appliances as the foundation
of a scalable, tiered data protection platform. As a result, the university
has increased its disk-based data retention and reduced its backup and
recovery windows while also extending long-term archival.

Founded in 1749 and named for two of the most influential leaders in
American history, George Washington and Robert E. Lee, the university offers
39 majors and more than 1,100 courses to approximately 1,700 undergraduates.
The school places high priority on leading-edge technology, deploying
fully-equipped computer labs and "smart classrooms" while giving all students
and faculty access to groupware with integrated calendaring and email along
with dedicated storage on the campus network.

Washington and Lee University experienced a rapid surge in storage during
a year-long migration from Novell NetWare to Microsoft Windows. The migration
also overtaxed an aging tape library, which facilitated the search for a
tiered disk-to-disk-to-tape solution that would work seamlessly with the
university’s EqualLogic IP SAN. In seeking heightened levels of data
protection, Washington and Lee deployed Overland’s REO 4500c disk-based
backup, recovery and virtual tape library (VTL) appliance with hardware
compression capabilities along with a REO 9000 VTL to accelerate backup and
recovery of 8 TBs of critical data. Additionally, the university added
scalable NEO 4000, NEO 2000 and ARCvault(TM) 24 tape automation solutions
to better meet data archival requirements.

According to Jim Bollinger, systems and network engineer for Washington
and Lee University, Overland’s tiers of disk- and tape-based data protection
were easily integrated. "We found REO’s iSCSI connectivity appealing since we
could address disk arrays physically located across campus for streamlined
backups and improved disaster recovery," he says. "It was an unforgettable
experience to drop in the purpose-built REOs and experience flawless
operation."

In deploying Overland’s tiered data protection solutions, Washington and
Lee University has lowered its administrative overhead from eight hours a week
to a couple of hours a year overseeing firmware updates. The REO VTLs write
multiple streams of data sequentially for faster, more reliable backups, while
also enabling the university to store a month of data on disk for nearly
instantaneous file recovery. Moreover, Overland’s REO 4500c with hardware
compression is proving instrumental in increasing the amount of media-rich
data that can be backed up on disk, including a large percentage of MP3 and
video files.

According to Vern LoForti, president and CEO of Overland Storage, the
company’s broad tape and disk portfolio enables mid-range companies to easily
deploy the most appropriate tiers of scalable data protection for their
situation. "By offering multiple layers of disk- and tape-based data
protection, Overland delivers optimized solutions to a wide assortment of
business problems," he says. "Washington and Lee’s REO-NEO implementation
reinforces how our disk and tape appliances can be integrated to solve tough
backup, recovery and retention challenges."

To keep pace with continued aggressive storage growth, Washington and Lee
University is considering a general-purpose storage array, such as Overland’s
ULTAMUS RAID, for another tier of data protection. A migration to LTO-3
tape technology also is underway.

Washington
and Lee University

Overland Storage