Penn Foster Deploys Spectra Logic’s De-Dupe Appliance

Spectra Logic announced that Penn Foster has selected its deduplication solution to provide cost-effective data backup, archive and disaster recovery. Penn Foster chose the Spectra nTier v80 Deduplication appliance for its efficient storage reduction capabilities, high capacity, competitive price for performance and easy integration with Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM).

 
With high data volumes driven by its distance-learning programs, reliable backup and recovery is critical to Penn Foster and its 13 million students. The Spectra nTier v80 Deduplication appliance serves as Penn Foster’s long-term backup target for Microsoft DPM. With an average data reduction ratio of 20:1, the Spectra solution allows Penn Foster to easily retain two weeks of nightly full backups with room to expand retention times. The Spectra solution provides simple and efficient offsite data replication to Penn Foster’s primary data center.
 
“Penn Foster selected Spectra Logic because it offered the best price for performance and capacity over competing products – and its proven VTL technology comes as a standard option, which further protected our budget,” said Ian Gaydos, manager of technology at Penn Foster. “We’re so pleased with the product’s performance that we are currently installing a second nTier v80 Deduplication appliance at our offsite disaster recovery location.”
 
Penn Foster runs full backups on a nightly basis directly to the Spectra nTier v80. The school uses HP ProLiant servers and HP StorageWorks switches and disk arrays, and runs nightly Microsoft DPM full backups directly to the Spectra nTier v80. The Spectra nTier v80 appliance delivers cost savings through efficient deduplicated replication and positions Penn Foster for solid offsite disaster recovery practices.
 
“Organizations of all sizes need performance-driven data protection and disaster recovery solutions that integrate key features such as deduplication, work well with leading backup applications and allow easy data transfers from disk to tape archives,” said Molly Rector, vice president of marketing and product management for Spectra Logic. “Spectra’s nTier Deduplication solutions achieve fast backup and recovery performance, efficiently transfer data from remote locations and reduce overall system costs through seamless integration with tape archiving.”
 
Spectra nTier Deduplication appliances deliver high performance with speeds up to 900MB per second, and are compatible with all major backup software applications, such as Microsoft DPM, Symantec Backup Exec and NetBackup, CommVault Simpana, CA ArcServe, and SyncSort Backup Express. The nTier Deduplication appliances scale up to 516 TBs of logical capacity, assuming a 20:1 deduplication ratio.