MELBOURNE, Australia, March 12, 2003 - Deakin University will consolidate its data-storage and data-management systems in a solution provided by IBM and Cisco Systems, Inc. The consolidation will more than triple Deakin's storage capacity, while increasing ease of data management.
Deakin University, which has an enrolment of more than 30,000 students across its six Victorian campuses, has created a progressive student-records application. That application was previously dispersed over many storage systems.
Working with Cisco and IBM, Deakin has now migrated to a centrally managed storage consolidation strategy. That strategy will allow the university to reduce the cost of managing data, make data highly available to teachers and students, and create an efficient storage platform to handle applications such as the development of an e-learning portal, e-mail and Web serving.
The solution, which is provided by Cisco and IBM, follows the announcement in January 2003 that IBM will resell the Cisco MDS 9000 Series of multilayer directors and fabric switches. The agreement allows Cisco and IBM to take advantage of their respective technology expertise to provide customers such as Deakin University with high-performance, scalable and manageable storage-area network (SAN) solutions.
Deakin has deployed two Cisco MDS 9509 multilayer directors with IBM's TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Server (ESS) 800 Turbo, which is capable of holding 55.9 terabytes (TB). Deakin has initially implemented 30 TB. The combined storage system will be one of the largest in Australia in terms of data capacity.
Deakin will logically partition capacity within this larger SAN using virtual SAN (VSAN) technology available on the Cisco MDS 9509. VSANs allow Deakin to manage one single, physical, storage network that maintains the advantages of security and access control of separate SAN "islands." This reliability and scalability formed the core of Deakin's migration strategy from direct-attached to networked storage.
In future deployments, Deakin plans to expand and extend access to this SAN to more of its servers using the multiprotocol capabilities of the Cisco MDS 9509. Specifically, Deakin plans to use Small Computer System Interface over IP (iSCSI) to allow low to midrange servers and applications to connect to its SAN while using Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) for remote-connectivity and disaster-recovery applications.
Richard Tan, Deakin University's director of Information Technology said, "Deakin University has a trusted relationship with both IBM and Cisco going back several years. By combining to deliver high-performance, scalable and manageable SAN solutions, IBM and Cisco have allowed us to achieve a business-critical consolidation, while providing us with a lower TCO (total cost of ownership) advantage and justifiable return on investment."
Cisco Australia and New Zealand managing director, Terry Walsh, said; "Deakin has an advanced IT strategy, seeking out a progressive SAN to create organisational efficiencies. Their innovative student-records system, coupled with the Cisco IBM solution, will deliver business cost savings and meet their current and future storage-networking requirements."
"Our Enterprise Storage Server sets a new standard for performance that builds on IBM's commitment to delivering storage products loaded with technology innovation and leading with open, industry standards. These are key issues for organisations like Deakin looking to better manage storage," said Garry Barker, senior storage specialist, IBM.
