University of Illinois Chooses StorMagic

StorMagic announced that University of Illinois has chosen the StorMagic SM Series, an iSCSI-based Storage Area Network (SAN) solution designed specifically for small and medium organisations. With only four people in the IT department and supporting as many as 40,000 users, the Instructional Computing Services department of the university is now taking advantage of the latest enterprise-level iSCSI capabilities of the StorMagic solution. The new implementation of the StorMagic SM Series allows the university to better manage and protect its data while preparing for future growth without exceeding its budget.
 
"Our old approach to storage was fairly traditional," said David Ruby, manager of instructional computing services. "We would buy inexpensive servers, fill them up, and then buy more servers. The equipment did not cost much, but it was getting hard to keep track of what we had and where. We knew that image size was only going to keep getting larger – the average image size is 15 GB right now – and that there were going to be other demands for storage capacity. We realised that increasing the drive size was not going to address the complexity, and we needed a solution that would not tie storage to specific servers."
 
"When they first tested the StorMagic SM Series, they were pleased to see that such a feature-rich software solution was so easy-to-use and so affordable.The installation took about 15 minutes, and it was one of the smoothest and best-managed implementations that we have done in a long time. Sikich LLP of Aurora, Ill. managed the purchasing process for us and provided the hardware," said Ruby. "We need excellent networking and reliable storage to keep up.  The university’s high-speed network gives us the communication capacity we need, and StorMagic gives us reliable storage."
 
The scalability of the StorMagic solution was a top selling point for the university. "We like the scalability of the system," Ruby commented. "We experience increasing use of digital media here at the school, requiring a lot of centralised storage. There are media applications these days that could need 100 GB of storage, and, with the StorMagic software, I know we are prepared to handle such requests."
 
StorMagic SM Series supports Novell applications, which was extremely important for Ruby. "We are also looking at a new service using Novell iFolderÒ to synchronise data across servers. A user can have folders at one location that the iFolder client will automatically copy to another location so you can work at home and school or the office—one more reason to appreciate StorMagic’s scalability."