Overland 20TB SnapSAN S2000 Chosen by United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta

Overland Storage Inc. announced that United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta, the fourth largest United Way branch in the nation, has deployed the SnapSAN S2000 to support nine remote offices and more than 600 end users.

United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta needed a virtualization solution that could operate within multiple Windows environments and run a multitude of campaigns, projects and programs simultaneously.

"Since we’re a nonprofit, the money we raise needs to go back to the causes we support. Our IT budget is watched closely – the focus is always on making the most out of our operating dollars so that we can maximize those resources for community outreach," said Orinzal Williams, executive director of IT for United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta. "We chose to deploy the SnapSAN S2000 because it offers similar features that high-end SAN solutions have without the complexity, giving us more bang for our buck. Because we have a small IT staff, we needed a solution that was simple to set up and manage. With the SnapSAN S2000, we were literally up and running within an hour and a half from the time we got the solution out of the box."

Williams deployed the Overland SnapSAN S2000 as part of the organization’s new storage virtualization strategy. By allocating the SnapSAN S2000 to manage the organization’s production environment, United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta was able to streamline data management operations and increase the information infrastructure performance without additional training, resources or costs. Optimized for multiple virtualized server environments, the S2000 enabled hundreds of employees to share and store data across nine offices in the Atlanta region.

United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta is currently utilizing the SnapSAN S2000 to store approximately 20 terabytes of shared data (with the ability to expand up to 192 terabytes), of which 85 percent is virtualized. By improving resource utilization  with their new virtualization strategy, United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta is cutting costs by reducing the need for physical assets, such as server floor space and power. In addition, the organization’s new virtualization strategy has enabled it to deploy applications quickly and has helped increase productivity.

"With automated capacity expansion, simple storage management features, disaster recovery features as well as maximized application uptime, the SnapSAN S2000 is an ideal cost-effective virtualization solution for nonprofit organizations with a limited IT staff and budget, such as United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta," said Joe Disher, product solutions manager for Overland Storage. "Built from the ground up for virtualized server environments, with the ability to be easily deployed within existing environments for instant scalability and reliability, the SnapSAN S2000 is a truly effortless data solution for businesses of any size."