Hillsborough County Library Deployed Two NetApp S500

NetApp announced that the Hillsborough County Library Services (HCLS), located in Tampa, Florida, has solidified its disaster recovery capabilities and streamlined its overall storage environment thanks to its recent installation of the NetApp S500 storage solution.

HCLS, with over 350 employees, is the central facility for the library system that serves Hillsborough County. The library contains over 2.1 million volumes and circulates 8.2 million items a year. While data growth was never an issue for HCLS, its previous IT infrastructure was unable to handle backups at the same time as file storage. Furthermore, with physical space at a premium in the server room and limited IT resources, any upgrades of the previous infrastructure needed to factor in both space and management constraints. Adding one final layer of complexity for HCLS was the disaster-prone location of Florida. While the library had survived more than 10 years without a fully featured backup scheme, changes had to be made to upgrade its rudimentary backup processes.

"Disaster recovery is something that we placed a very high premium on given the key role that HCLS plays in the success of the Hillsborough County library system," said Jason Biggers, general manager of HCLS. "Unfortunately, our previous backup and recovery method wasn’t the long-term solution we needed. After looking around, we decided that the network storage capabilities of NetApp combined with the virtualization capabilities of VMware gave HCLS the best possible solution to meet our business needs."

Through the help of value-added reseller GCA Technology Services, HCLS deployed two S500 units, each configured with 12 500GB drives and RAID-DP(R). On one of the S500s, HCLS is able to run four physical servers and 27 virtual servers, essentially placing all server data in one location. Combined with VMware, which is hosted on the S500, HCLS can now conduct painless hardware upgrades and more efficient storage management. With the ability to dynamically grow and allocate storage through a single point of management, the HCLS IT department has also realized significant time savings.

The second S500 unit is deployed at a remote, higher altitude location, for disaster recovery. Backups are now performed nightly and replicated to the remote S500 during the day. This replication enables the safety and integrity of HCLS’s data, which is something that was previously a great concern given the library’s location.

"From the get-go, managing our NetApp solutions has been a breeze," said Biggers. "The installation time took less than four hours, and our IT department now has more time to devote to other issues thanks to its centralized and simple management features. I can also rest easy at night knowing that all of HCLS’s data is safely and securely backed up."

"The NetApp solution was an ideal fit for HCLS’s storage and disaster recovery needs," said Amy Kessler, senior account manager for GCA Technology Services. "Their requirement for network storage that handled both VMware and replication could only be met with a product that we trusted, and the inherent flexibility on the S500 gave us an edge over our competition."

"Midmarket companies such as HCLS need a backup and recovery solution that they can count on," said Patrick Rogers, vice president of Solutions Marketing for NetApp. "NetApp’s product not only provides HCLS with peace of mind but is also able to easily integrate with VMware, providing HCLS with the physical space and efficient storage management capabilities inherent in a virtualized environment."