Stockport Grammar School decreases SAN data by 75% with effective archiving:

July 31, 2012 - PRLog -- READING, UK, 31 July, 2012 - C2C, a leading provider of email archiving and management solutions, has announced today that Stockport Grammar school, a leading co-educational independent school with 1,600 pupils and around 200 staff, has adopted C2C’s ArchiveOne for Files to decrease the size of their data store by over 75%.



Since 1990, Stockport Grammar had been operating a dual file shared area for pupils and staff encouraging all to exchange critical resources and coursework. However Mick Flaherty, the schools’ ICT Co-ordinator was becoming increasingly concerned that the dual shared area had grown out of control, consuming vast amounts of costly primary storage and requiring significant  management overhead for lengthy backups and retrieval. Due to the storage of numerous large files, digital images and PowerPoint presentations, the size of the store had ballooned to over 3TB, largely in unused and infrequently accessed files. Checks revealed that many of these files were either duplicates or originated by pupils and staff who had left the school.



Mick takes up the story, “Our investigations concluded that we needed to identify a cost effective, easy to use file management system that could set automated policies and restore usability.” At the same time, a reconfiguration of the entire network led to the school deploying virtualisation and a streamlined data set on the servers. To restore manageability, C2C’s ArchiveOne for Files was identified as a potential file archiving solution by the school’s trusted partner, ICT Solutions, to provide an affordable automated solution for any files that had not been touched for two years. The remit provided that after identification, dormant files would be automatically placed into the archive store to facilitate manageable backups.



Installation commenced under guidance from ICT Solutions, closely supported by C2C, with the software seamlessly deployed within a day. In the first month alone, the ICT team were able to summarise the effectiveness of the software on the shared drives. Once all the static data over two years old was identified, tagged and transferred into the archive, the shared file size decreased from 3TB to a very manageable 0.7TB.



C2C’s ArchiveOne achieved this by routing static data onto the archive server and transferring it away from the 12TB Fujitsu SAN primary storage. Backup of the archived area was then scheduled with repeating backups to occur each month. In terms of enhanced and efficient search and retrieval of information from within the archive, users have not noted any significant changes; files are still available seamlessly by clicking on the native icon.



From an administration point of view, the system requires minimal manual intervention and resourcing from the ICT team, as archiving and recovery are automated from policies established at the beginning of the project. To facilitate these policies and repositories, Stockport Grammar uses a simple annual structure that allows files to be stored, accessed and retrieved on a 12 calendar month cycle. ArchiveOne for Files has been configured to identify files that have not been accessed for over 18 months and to move them into one of the two repositories, ‘Staff and Shared’, created on the archive server. ICT report that the backup window has also decreased in-line with the reduced data set.



Mick summarises "C2C's ArchiveOne for Files has significantly reduced the size of the data set and therefore our resultant workload. The automation of files over 18 months old is a useful facility that has lowered both storage costs and management overhead.”



A live online demonstration, references from other ArchiveOne users, and a 30-day trial are available at: http://uk.c2c.com/resources.



About C2C:

C2C Systems has earned the trust of its four million software users since 1992 by consistently delivering high-value, dependable core messaging system enhancements. Microsoft® Exchange, SharePoint®, and Windows® File Server form the heart of C2C's commercial and governmental customers’ businesses worldwide. C2C’s ArchiveOne® product family is the trusted choice for email and file archiving, eDiscovery, compliance management, legal forensics and storage management tools to enhance these platforms. For more information about the Company, visit www.uk.c2c.com.



CONTACTS:

Andrea Hall

C2C

E: Andrea.hall@c2c.com



Sharon Munday

On Your Case Ltd

P:   +44 (0) 7787 566382

E: sharon@onyourcase.co.uk