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Ordnance Surveyâs Large-Scale Geographic Data Archive Puts BridgeHead Softwareâs HT FileStore and Plasmonâs UDO® âon the mapâ
Woburn, MA and Cambridge, UK (PRWEB) October 11, 2006 â
Ordnance Survey, Great Britainâs national mapping agency, has chosen a combination of technology from BridgeHead Software and Plasmon to deliver a state of the art storage management system to safeguard its digital geographic assets. For more than 200 years, Ordnance Survey has built an international reputation for providing accurate, reliable and detailed geographic information and historical reference. Faced with the need to retain its growing volume of digital information in a secure and cost effective format, Ordnance Survey selected OptoMedia as its integration partner to implement Plasmon UDO libraries and BridgeHeadâs HT FileStore software to store and manage its massive lifelong digital archives.
Each year Ordnance Survey collects more than 40TB of new cartographic, photographic and administrative information. These images and records provide the foundation for the wide range of mapping products and geographic services offered to leisure, commercial and government customers. Ordnance Survey views the need to cost effectively retain and access an authentic version of these digital records for an indefinite period of time as critical to the success of its business.
Over the last few years, Ordnance Survey realized that its method for collecting and permanently storing this data was overly costly and unsustainable over the long term. It estimated that its previous disk-based solution was costing in the region of £2,500 per Terabyte (TB) of stored data and would likely hit physical capacity limits in a short period of time. The new Bridgehead and Plasmon system provides a long-term sustainable storage platform that has already reduced the cost of storage to just £1,200 per TB with a further decrease to just £600 per TB anticipated in the future.
To address its demanding archive requirements, Ordnance Survey worked with storage solutions integration firm OptoMedia to deploy a Plasmon G638 UDO Library with 19TB of online storage capacity for the primary facility and a second smaller Gx24 UDO library for the disaster recovery site. BridgeHeadâs HT FileStore software was then selected for its ability to automatically classify file data and select it according to policy for inclusion in the UDO-based archives. HT FileStore provides a robust level of âprotected data lifecycle managementâ for the secondary storage repositories it manages. One particularly important feature is that HT FileStore writes copies of data to both locations simultaneously, ensuring Ordnance Surveyâs archive data is replicated on UDO media in each library for robust, long-term retention. At the same time, the system ensures that primary disk space is used to its optimum, that archived data is accessible either transparently or actively, depending on Ordnance Surveyâs needs, and that it is fully searchable.
The ability to archive to multiple copies and multiple locations was a major factor in the selection of HT FileStore. Its self-replicating archive feature eliminates nearly all the expense of performing backup and disaster recovery procedures, and combines with UDO media to produce a solution that measures up to Ordnance Surveyâs clear disaster recovery needs. Secondary archive media is stored offsite at the disaster recovery location, which can be quickly accessed without time-consuming recovery in the event of a major failure at the primary facility. HT FileStore also manages data migration to new media in the future, providing enduring resilience. Ordnance Survey will be using more than 1,300 pieces of 30 Gigabyte (GB) UDO media to archive historic and future information and has plans to implement 60GB UDO2 media when it is released in 2007.
Plasmonâs G-Series Library with UDO is an ideal storage solution for Ordnance Survey because of the need to retain its mapping and historical information in an unaltered format for many decades. The UDO WORM (Write Once Read Many) media ensures data authenticity and the stability and longevity of UDO dramatically reduces archive management overheads. By deploying UDO archive solutions, Ordnance Survey can comfortably operate on an 8-12 year data migration cycle, which is much greater than that of any disk or tape archive. This extended media lifecycle helps to secure record integrity while significantly reducing their long-term cost of operation.
For Ordnance Survey, this first step is a precursor to other archiving requirements. Dave Lipsey, Information Systems Infrastructure Manager explained: âWe anticipate an average of over 40TB of raw data will need to be archived each year, with files of over 1GB not uncommon. The archive solution we chose had to be capable of managing such a high volume of files of this size, for the longest time period possible. Magnetic disk and tape canât match the media life provided by UDO, and with BridgeHeadâs storage management software, we can safely archive, manage and migrate our data for ever.â
âOrdnance Survey is a good example of an organization that is leveraging the strengths of UDO,â said Dave Thomson, sales director for Plasmon EMEA. âOur customers understand how UDO and G-Series library technology offers a much more appropriate solution than disk or tape for long-term archival storage and we achieve this at a very cost-effective price. Weâre seeing very strong market momentum for UDO across a wide range of industries and our partnership with BridgeHead Software is constantly opening new channels to market.â
âWorking with Ordnance Survey has shown us the true meaning of storage forever,â commented Tony Cotterill, Managing Director of BridgeHead Software. âOne should never underestimate the importance to any business of having easy access to its data, whenever that data might be needed in the future.â
Notes to editors:
Dave Lipsey, Information Systems Infrastructure Manager at Ordnance Survey, will be presenting at Storage Expo on a âFuture-proofing storageâ keynote panel â Thursday, 19th October at 2pm.
About BridgeHead Software (http://www.BridgeHeadSoftware.com)
BridgeHead Software is a technology company with a total focus on integrated storage management software. Over the past 12 years, BridgeHeadâs technology has benefited major application and hardware vendors to facilitate their customersâ storage management needs. BridgeHead Softwareâs Integrated Storage Management suite of products provides backup, archive, migration, replication, storage media management and disaster recovery for email, files, images and unstructured data. BridgeHead has an established customer base and a growing international distribution network that provides sales, support, training and consulting services to major markets worldwide.
About OptoMedia Storage Solutions (http://www.optomedia.com)
OptoMedia Storage Solutions is a developer and integrator of specialist data storage solutions and e-mail archiving for a wide range of computer systems. As a value add distributor OptoMedia has a unique working relationship with storage resellers to architect and implement specialist storage and archive solutions across a wide range of computer systems. OptoMedia has a core focus and expertise on archive systems utilizing optical storage technologies.
About Ordnance Survey (http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk)
Ordnance Survey is Great Britainâs national mapping agency. It is responsible for creating and updating the master map of the entire country, from which it produces and markets a wide range of digital map data and paper maps for business, leisure, educational and administrative use.
About Plasmon (http://www.plasmon.com)
Plasmon is the trusted source in archiving systems and provides the most comprehensive line of archival storage solutions, including the flagship Archive Appliance product. Founded in 1984, Plasmon is listed on the London Stock Exchange, (LSE: PLM) with worldwide headquarters in Cambridge, United Kingdom and U.S. headquarters in Denver, Colorado. Plasmon offers longevity, authenticity, and ease of access to critical business data to enterprises looking to protect business assets for competitive reasons and meet regulatory compliance requirements. For more information, visit http://www.plasmon.com.
Plasmon and UDO are registered trademarks of Plasmon Plc. Copyright 2006
For Ordnance Survey photography or further information, please contact Omarketing.
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