Releases

posted on 11 February 2008 13:28

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Overland Storage, Inc. (Nasdaq: OVRL) today announced that Washington and Lee University, a top-ranked college based in Lexington, Va., has deployed complementary REO SERIES(R) and NEO SERIES(R) disk- and tape-based appliances as the foundation of a scalable, tiered data protection platform.

As a result, the university has increased its disk-based data retention and reduced its backup and recovery windows while also extending long-term archival.

Founded in 1749 and named for two of the most influential leaders in American history, George Washington and Robert E. Lee, the university offers 39 majors and more than 1,100 courses to approximately 1,700 undergraduates. The school places high priority on leading-edge technology, deploying fully-equipped computer labs and "smart classrooms" while giving all students and faculty access to groupware with integrated calendaring and email along with dedicated storage on the campus network.

Washington and Lee University experienced a rapid surge in storage during a year-long migration from Novell NetWare to Microsoft Windows. The migration also overtaxed an aging tape library, which facilitated the search for a tiered disk-to-disk-to-tape solution that would work seamlessly with the university's EqualLogic IP SAN. In seeking heightened levels of data protection, Washington and Lee deployed Overland 's REO(TM) 4500c disk-based backup, recovery and virtual tape library (VTL) appliance with hardware compression capabilities along with a REO 9000 VTL to accelerate backup and recovery of 8 TBs of critical data. Additionally, the university added scalable NEO(TM) 4000, NEO 2000 and ARCvault(TM) 24 tape automation solutions to better meet data archival requirements.

According to Jim Bollinger, systems and network engineer for Washington and Lee University , Overland 's tiers of disk- and tape-based data protection were easily integrated. "We found REO's iSCSI connectivity appealing since we could address disk arrays physically located across campus for streamlined backups and improved disaster recovery," he says. "It was an unforgettable experience to drop in the purpose-built REOs and experience flawless operation."

In deploying Overland's tiered data protection solutions, Washington and Lee University has lowered its administrative overhead from eight hours a week to a couple of hours a year overseeing firmware updates. The REO VTLs write multiple streams of data sequentially for faster, more reliable backups, while also enabling the university to store a month of data on disk for nearly instantaneous file recovery. Moreover, Overland 's REO 4500c with hardware compression is proving instrumental in increasing the amount of media-rich data that can be backed up on disk, including a large percentage of MP3 and video files.

According to Vern LoForti, president and CEO of Overland Storage, the company's broad tape and disk portfolio enables mid-range companies to easily deploy the most appropriate tiers of scalable data protection for their situation. "By offering multiple layers of disk- and tape-based data protection, Overland delivers optimized solutions to a wide assortment of business problems," he says. "Washington and Lee's REO-NEO implementation reinforces how our disk and tape appliances can be integrated to solve tough backup, recovery and retention challenges."

To keep pace with continued aggressive storage growth, Washington and Lee University is considering a general-purpose storage array, such as Overland 's ULTAMUS(TM) RAID, for another tier of data protection. A migration to LTO-3 tape technology also is underway.