University of Michigan Has Selected Isilon

Isilon Systems announced that the
University of Michigan (U-M) has selected Isilon’s IQ clustered storage system
as the primary repository for its Michigan Digitization Project.

In
partnership with Google, the University of Michigan and its Michigan
Digitization Project are digitizing more than 7.5 million books, ensuring
these valuable resources are available to the public into perpetuity. This
enormous undertaking includes the storage of digital copies of all unique
books within the libraries of the entire Big-Ten Conference and directly
supports Google Book Search, which aims to create a single, comprehensive,
searchable, virtual card catalog of all books in all languages. The University
of Michigan, in partnership with Indiana University (IU), is leveraging
Isilon’s IQ clustered storage system to create a Shared Digital Repository
(SDR) of the universities’ published library materials. Using Isilon IQ, U-M
and IU are able consolidate digital copies of millions of books into one,
single, shared pool of storage to meet the rapidly growing storage demand of
its massive book digitization project.

"With millions of people now using Google as the starting point for
information searches once conducted solely in libraries, creating digital
copies of our texts for Google Book Search is not only a natural progression
for our institution, but critical to providing world-class learning
opportunities to people the world over," said John Wilkin, Associate
University Librarian, University of Michigan.

"The underlying design of Isilon clustered storage, combined with its
tightly-integrated, easy-to-use management utilities, leads us to believe that
not only will our Isilon system easily scale to meet the huge demands of our
project, but we’ll spend less time upgrading and managing it," said Cory
Snavely, Director of Library IT Core Services at the University of Michigan.

In conjunction with the Committee for Institutional Cooperation (CIC), an
academic partnership formed by the universities of the Big-Ten Conference and
the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan and Indiana University
are working to create a Shared Digital Repository (SDR) which will mirror the
content from U-M and the CIC libraries found in Google Book Search. Using
Isilon IQ clustered storage, featuring its OneFS operating system software,
U-M has eliminated disparate data silos to create a shared pool of storage for
the digitization efforts of these partner institutions.

Each digitized book is approximately 55 MB in size, downloading at a rate
of 3 MB/second, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the entire six year
duration of the project. Isilon IQ reduces storage management time, enabling
U-M to accelerate the book scanning process, preserve valuable materials, and
ultimately expand the research and learning capabilities for millions of users
across the globe.

"Our world is rapidly progressing to a day when all information — be it
news, academic research, entertainment, or scientific discoveries — is
available immediately, in digital form, through the power of online search
technologies, such as Google," said Brett Goodwin, VP of Marketing & Business
Development, Isilon Systems. "As witnessed in the exemplary case of the
University of Michigan, supporting the mammoth effort to meet growing consumer
demand and convert traditionally physical resources into digital formats
requires a new kind of thinking — and a new kind of storage. Isilon clustered
storage was designed specifically for digital content and unstructured data,
delivering unprecedented scalability, performance and ease of use to enable
organizations, such as the University of Michigan, to maximize the value of
their critical data and transform the way in which people consume
information."

University of Michigan

Isilon Systems