The campus-based University of Stirling was founded by Royal Charter in 1967. It has established itself as a major university with remote campuses in Inverness and Stornoway and a fine reputation for teaching supported by an active research culture. Today, it has more than 8,000 registered students.

Since 1990, the computing infrastructure on the campus has been built around products from Hewlett-Packard. Recently, a growing awareness that students need an increased number of improved IT services led the university to plan a new infrastructure strategy. According to Unix systems specialist Brian Bullen, enhanced storage capabilities were a central element in this strategy.

“We had reached a situation where we had run out of capacity, and time to back up the disks we had. Backup operations were consuming so much network bandwidth that performance was suffering greatly. At the same time, end-user files weren’t always being backed up, with serious consequences if we had a system outage," he explained.

• Improve IT services to end users

• Enhance network performance

• Increase data storage capacity

• Back up and restore data more quickly and more reliably

• Award contract for new infrastructure to Abtech Computer   Services in partnership with hp

• Implement storage area network based around hp   Surestore Virtual Array VA7100

• Install hp Surestore E Tape Library 4/40 and hp Openview   Omniback II for data backup

San Solution

To solve these problems, the university decided to implement a storage area network (SAN), which would separate backup from other network traffic and at the same time provide a larger storage capacity, which could be shared among multiple hosts. The university implemented a SAN based around a HP Surestore Virtual Array VA7100, with a HP Surestore E Tape Library 4/40 for backup. Existing Windows servers were replaced with clustered HP Netserver systems running the university's MS-Exchange based e-mail systems. Other existing servers including Unix based HP9000 systems were retained.

Fast Recovery

According to Bullen, the benefits of the SAN are very clear. “End users are benefiting from improved network reliability, availability and performance, whilst IT staff are less involved with complicated backup operations and recovery of lost data.” Should a system outage occur, recovery is now considerably faster because data backup and restore operations are more streamlined. Similarly, should an individual user delete a file accidentally, it can be recovered more quickly. “HP’s technology covers all our requirements: Microsoft clustering, flexible storage, rapid backup, reliability, scalability and excellent support. What’s more, of all the companies involved in the tender process, HP and Abtech were the only ones able to address the issue of integrated storage within a heterogeneous environment,” concluded Bullen.

"We chose Abtech because of their overall approach and effort to understand our needs. With remote sites in Inverness and Stornoway, it is essential that we have access to a true nationwide support service with spare parts available at a moment's notice." "Other key factors were the outstanding reliability of HP's hardware and the ability to integrate Unix and Windows environments effectively. The benefits of the SAN are very clear. End users are benefiting from improved network reliability, availability and performance, whilst IT staff are less involved with complicated backup operations and recovery of lost data."

Brian Bullen
Unix Systems Manager
University of Stirling

• Network reliability, availability and performance are   improved

• Streamlined backup processes save time and money

• Recovery from system outages is faster why hp?

• Superior integration of Unix and Windows environments

• Strength of support organisation

• Reliability of hardware