Brunel University in West London Opts for HP Integrated Archive Platform

Brunel University in West London is one of the most respected universities in the UK, a community of about 20,000 people including 14,000 students of more than 100 nationalities. As the university grew, the amount of data it processed grew exponentially, warranting immense levels of backup: files were getting bigger, many with large attachments, and more email was being stored. The amount of data the university stored in its archives was growing at the rate of 2 terabytes per year. Furthermore, the university as a public body in the higher education sector is subject to the Freedom of Information Act, which places legal responsibility on its governance of student information.

Additionally, as memos and other communications went digital and the ‘paper trail’ disappeared, it needed to have viable process of electronic discovery in place in order to easily manage cases or disputes relating to student results, governance, or fraud.
The University previously implemented a tape-based archiving solution established in 2000, which was backed-up using Backup Express, a 400GB tape solution. Tape backups of all of the University’s archives were routinely taken every 24 hours – a process that was very time consuming, often taking up to a day to execute.

As the amount of data coming into Brunel University increased, so did the amount of time taken to conduct back-ups of the system.  Accessing archived information represented a further. The growing number of archive files had to be segmented and this created problems including a lack of consistency in file categorisation. This increased the time and effort it took to conduct a proper search, in the event of an official request for information. Search parameters had to be repeatedly entered manually for different sections of the archive. This was an error-prone process and could have exposed the university to issues of improper management of data.

To manage its business properly, the university decided that it needed to adopt an overarching information management system. They selected HP’s Integrated Archive Platform (IAP) solution which gave them reliability of search and storage as well as much quicker turnaround official search requests.  

Objective
Brunel University wanted a scalable, easy to access and consistent archiving system to manage vastly increased data loads.

Approach
HP’s Integrated Archive platform now provides a single, automated archiving solution across the entire university. All aspects of archiving, such as indexing, tamper proof storage, and policy management are provided by the HP IAP, as is search and retrieval of archived information.

IT Improvements

• New archiving system has halved the time required to take backups
• Time taken to search and retrieve any particular document containing specific terms or relating to a specific task has reduced by a factor of over 20
• The new system has reduced the physical storage requirements for backup storage

Business Benefits
Error-free, consistent electronic discovery process
Integrity and transparency of data storage and retrieval
Reduction in IT administrative time taken to manage archive data

A central system for ease of data capture
Brunel University opted for HP Integrated Archive Platform, incorporating world-class HP server and grid storage technology and native content indexing, search, and policy management software into a single, factory-assembled rack system that sets the standard for archiving scalability, flexibility, and performance. With the new HP IAP system, all incoming and outgoing email is automatically captured and archived after it passes through the university’s spam filters. Users need no longer worry about archiving their materials as the university’s system now captures all data automatically.  As a result of this centralised approach, all data is stored in exactly the same format, leading to ease of retrieval.

Integrity and availability of information
“As a public body falling under the Freedom of Information Act, it was essential for us to maintain our archives in a way that would ensure that any data was available upon request of the appropriate authorities,” remarks Iain Liddell, Policy Development Manager, Brunel University. “Whether ensuring that student progression is fair to all students, or tracing an individual committing fraud, we need to ensure that the team searching for the data is able to access it without the integrity of the data being impaired, and that we as investigators are confident that all the available information has been located.”

With the previous system, users had to search Microsoft Exchange archive (.pst) files, often entering the same search parameters repeatedly as they looked through segmented files stored at various locations in the archive. This inevitably led to human error and incomplete or even erroneous results.  The new system however needs search parameters to be entered only once, and the entire archive is searched quickly and effortlessly.

What’s more, the HP IAP system is also highly scalable, meaning that it can grow to meet further increases in data without its performance being affected.

Security vs. accessibility
While transparency and availability of data as required remains at the heart of the Brunel University system, the university was clear that user data needed to be kept secure from unauthorised access.

The system is protected with password controls at various levels, with sensitive areas being sealed off. Formal compliance-driven searches require a ‘twin heart’ password with two different individuals being required to provide one half each of the password to initiate the search.

“It is part of the parameters of our system to know who is searching for what data and when,” says Mr Liddell. “As part of our strategic drive to bring the integrity of our archives to the highest levels, the university is in the process of creating a new role for its Information Access Officer, whose areas of responsibility include Freedom of Information and Data Protection, and who reports directly to the Secretary to the University Council. This direct route to the heart of University governance guards against ethical slippage.”

Privacy
With every incoming and outgoing email captured and archived in the system, do users not have privacy concerns? “Our computer systems and email policies are categorical – Brunel e-mail is for Brunel business only,” states Mr Liddell. The university’s policies are communicated to all new entrants and also reside prominently on the university’s intranet and extranet, and users’ access to personal mail accounts with third parties (such as Virgin webmail) is not inhibited by web policies. The published policy for the use of the archive reassures users that nobody can spy on their mail.

Results
While the solution is still being rolled out across the university, initial results already show a marked improvement in performance across all parameters. The university typically conducts between 25 and 35 e-discovery investigations in a year. In one example, the time taken to locate all the emails pertaining to a particular topic or word has been cut down from about 14 days to just a few hours, freeing up system administrators’ time to focus on their core business. “Beyond just efficiency, the solution has helped Brunel further enhance its reputation for corporate integrity, and you simply can’t put a price on that,” concludes Mr Liddell.