NHS Hospital Deploys Spectra Logic and CommVault

Spectra Logic Corp. announced that a major NHS Foundation, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay (UHMBT), has implemented its disk and tape solution across the hospital’s main infrastructure environment making data management easier, faster and more cost effective.

Spectra joined forces with CommVault Systems, Inc. to integrate with their Simpana software to lower the cost of protecting, managing and accessing information. The installation, deployed in the main data centre in Barrow in Furness, forms an important part of a five-year plan to improve the IT infrastructure, facilities, meeting financial targets and performance of the organisation overall.

The front-end architecture consists of CommVault Simpana software, which provides policy and configuration management, while the back-end features Spectra nTier Verde for nearline disk storage and Spectra T-Series tape library. In this case the nTier Verde 4U has been configured for 77TB of capacity at a cost of less than .35 pence per gigabyte. The T50e library consists of two LTO-5 drives, which can accommodate the combined capacity of up to 626TB with 8 drives, and 100 tapes, for dense, low-cost, long-term data retention, backup and archive. The joint solution, which has been tested and validated as part of the Technology Alliance Partner program, has allowed UHMBT four times the capacity of previous storage at half the cost.

UHMBT is based in the North West of England and serves South Cumbria and North Lancashire. Consisting of the Furness General Hospital in Barrow, the Royal Lancaster Infirmary in Lancaster and the Westmorland General Hospital in Kendal, the foundation employs over 5,000 people. The hospitals required a long-term solution to provide reliable backup of email, unstructured file data and SQL databases from numerous departmental clinical systems, such as pathology, pharmacy and endoscopy. In addition, UHMBT needed 24/7 access to live data overnight backups to avoid affecting the busier daytime hours.

With increasing data volumes of up to 25TB and the need for secure backups, part of the deployment criteria required compatibility with pre-installed Simpana, which allows efficient data management and the ability to rapidly find, retrieve and access data. This solution, when connected with disk and tape from Spectra Logic, creates a marriage, removing the complexities of tiered storage, while also lowering the cost of data protection, control and access. Designed to thrive in data-intensive environments such as this, it forms a scalable, singular data management platform that addresses performance and storage requirements for secure, reliable backup and archive.

In addition, UHMBT was faced with the challenge that the previous backup-to-disk solution was close to full capacity, being provided on the same storage hardware as current live data, as well as offering insufficient storage space. Competitive products from vendors such as EMC Isilon, Nexsan and Quantum were evaluated, but as the hospital urgently needed to move to a faster tape unit with higher storage capacity, nTier Verde was the obvious choice: it offers affordable file storage capability with easy installation, an user interface for effortless management and architecture that assures data integrity. It proved to be suitable for the trust’s long-term archive and backup needs.

With LTO technology, built-in design requiring minimal user intervention and management, the T50e offers feature-rich powerful library management and encryption. After the Spectra Logic installation, the T50e proved to be a very dependable unit with backups running much more reliably on the new hardware/tape drives. The T50e is able to take more than two tape units and is a library that looks after itself; with the call-home logging feature it is always in contact with Spectra Logic support, who is able to diagnose any issues from the logs that are sent over.

The expansion potential offered by nTier Verde means it can grow with the organisation, while time spent managing the solution is now minimal as once the system has been installed it requires very little attention. UHMBT is enjoying shorter backup times, increased confidence in its ability to carry out restores and the storage capacity to meet the demands of the organisation as it progresses through its objectives.

nTier Verde Disk and T-Series tape libraries
It is an affordable disk-based file storage system delivers easy installation, an intuitive user interface for effortless management, and an architecture that assures data integrity. It is designed as a backup and archive storage platform focused on data integrity, ease of use, scalability, and cost effectiveness.

nTier Verde advantages include:

• No previous storage experience required: intuitive and intelligent web GUI interface for ease of configuration and management.
• Half the cost of traditional file storage: users can store more and spend less.
• Reliability, HA and data integrity: includes nearline SAS drive architecture with enhanced parity options.

Spectra T-Series tape libraries offer reliable, high-density storage and scale to exabyte capacity levels. They offer library management tools and Spectra Certified Media that simplifies management, extends the life of tape media and drives, and ensures data is secure and available when needed.