By Lilia Guan
Growth of data storage forced the DECCW to expand its storage requirements.
David Schneider, Director of Information Management and Communication Technology for the DECCW, said, through a tender process, the Department looked for a flexible, scalable storage solution that was able to keep up with its growth and meet the high-availability requirements of its dispersed workforce.
NetApp was able to offer the Department a storage product that was simpler and easier to manage than its old system.
“NetApp has allowed us to work faster and improve efficiency, enabling us to more effectively meet the needs of our internal and external customers,” Mr Schneider said.
In the past, to manage the expanding data storage requirements, the DECCW added more storage capacity as required.
However this became unsustainable, particularly as backup reached capacity very quickly and backups were also being duplicated across multiple sites, further exhausting the system.
“The NSW Government has undergone an ICT expenditure review, which puts pressure on all departments to seek ways to operate more efficiently,” he said.
“DECCW’s data, information and knowledge are now managed through a series of information management systems and tools that give staff, collaborators and the community access to up-to-date and reliable information and decision support tools.
According to Mr Schneider in two central data-centres, DECCW runs NetApp V series devices virtualising EMC storage arrays to allow improved storage utilisation rates and improved management simplicity for existing IT assets.
For the branch infrastructure, NetApp FAS2020’s are being deployed to Snapshot data, plus backups and copy them to the central area.
The central systems run a wide variety of NetApp software plus FC and SATA storage. NetApp designed and deployed their current storage infrastructure, which DECCW purchased using ITS2846.
Peter O’Connor, Area Vice President for NetApp Australia and New Zealand, told Government News DECCW has quite a unique situation in that its workforce is distributed widely across the state and the country (around 4,000 staff employed in 200 branch offices across NSW,) so they have particular data needs as a result.
“While NetApp developed this solution specifically for the type of infrastructure products and technology in use can be of great benefit to all government agencies,” he said.
“Government agencies, like all organisations, are experiencing massive data growth and are always searching for the best value-for-money solutions for the taxpayer. “
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