The University of Bristol has selected a Spectra Logic tape library to accommodate up to 2PB of capacity for its data storage needs.
The university consists of a heavily virtualised environment, providing over 450 servers to back up in central services, and it needed to create an archive and migrate less time-critical data to a tape library in order to free up costly primary storage.
After considering its options, the university did a trial run for a few months with the Spectra T200 tape library and then selected the T680 version due to its larger capacity, with 42 rack units providing up to 2PB of compressed storage with the LTO-5 tape drive and media technology deployed in the library.
The library also used StorHouse software from FileTek to move the data from primary disk storage to the active tape archive so that the data held on the library is always readily available.
The T-680 includes the advanced security technology that initially attracted the university to Spectra's solutions, namely integrated BlueScale Encryption to provide added AES-256 bit security for stored data and the Media Lifecycle Management feature. Media Lifecycle Management records more than 40 data points every time a tape is loaded, giving vital statistical and diagnostic information so that integrity of the data on the tapes can be ensured and easily managed.
Post installation, the University of Bristol is migrating data into its active archive to help offload the primary storage and to more efficiently manage backups. In addition, the extra capacity afforded by the tape libraries will enable the university to scale to multiple petabytes in the same footprint in the future.
