Research Council UK (RCUK), which is responsible for
co-ordinating all scientific research at UK universities, has
updated its storage area network (San) with mutli-tiered storage to
lower costs.
RCUK had a large information repository which was pushing
existing storage systems to capacity. It was holding millions of
data files, many of which were infrequently accessed but had to be
kept for auditing purposes. It also held about two million files
attached to the database which needed to be kept for auditing.
This was an expensive way to store infrequently accessed legacy
data. RCUK has now deployed a Compellent Storage Center San, which
uses tiered storage to reduce the costs of long-term low-level
storage in comparison with the existing San.
The tiered storage and automatic data migration of the
Compellent Storage Center San means that infrequently accessed data
is automatically migrated to lower-cost SATA drives with no
involvement needed from the storage administrator, according to
RCUK.
Tiered storage architecture used by RCUK
