British Airwaysis installing a
monitoring system for itsstorage area network (San) infrastructureto tackle the risk of downtime.
The San software holds the main data for most of BA's business
applications, and the new
monitoring
software will tell IT staff how well it is performing, or if it is
not functioning properly.
The company also installed software enabling it to make better
use of storage space by searching and highlighting where there is
space left to use.
David Smith, infrastructure software manager at BA, explained
that the San has some resistance, so a single failure would not
cause an outage of the entire system.
He said, "It would take multiple failures, but if we did not
spot things quickly enough, some business functions like parts of
BA.com or the finance system would not work at all.
"This software allows us to see if there is a problem and fix it
before it causes us problems."
He said the measure could save them money, but said, "We have
not put a figure on it as it is more of a cost avoidance."
The company is putting more services onto the San software as
the website develops and the business grows. The new system allows
BA to see where there is remaining space before having to buy more
disks, giving it better management capability of the space it has
and avoiding wastage. Smith said, "This tool will help us find that
space very quickly and use it more appropriately".
New capacity licence software means the company only has to
purchase extra licences as their storage requirements grow, instead
of each time they buy a new server.
The software, provided by CA, includes CA Storage Resource
Manager, CA San Manager, BrightStor San Designer and XOsoft
WanSyncHA.
The software will be rolled out by the end of the year.