China:Use IP SAN to Build “Knowledge Base”

Customer’s comment

“For a library, the value of its resource would be magnified if we could make it available on the Internet, and having a well-built storage system is key part of that process. From performance, security, management and investment protection standpoints, H3C’s IP Storage systems not only guarantee flawless operations but also let users easily search the vast amount of content, providing an indispensable tool to the school’s research effort. The outstanding performance of the storage system affirms our decision in choosing H3C.”

— Xi’an University of Technology Information technology Department Professor Zhu Ping

Customer Requirements

Xi’an University of Technology was founded in May 1, 1949, and it’s a university with an emphasis on research.

The library serves the university’s three campuses, its 22000 students and 2500 faculty members. The online system not only provides off-premise checking out and returning books but also offers information lookup, online search and other services.

Besides its regular book operation, the Xi’an University of Technology online library system also supports electronic books, periodicals, thesis, online CDs, specialty books and other databases. This vast amount of information needs an efficient and secured storage system to assure users can quickly access this database of knowledge

If the modern university was to realize the full potential of its knowledge base, its IT department bears a major responsibility, and having the capability to store all this information becomes more important.

Making the resource available

The size of the university’s digital library has reached 10 TB and growing every day. More than 20000 users access the information through the use of the Internet. How can the university assure the efficiency and speed of the access, especially in the peak usage? How can the university manage the vast amount of information effectively? How can the university guarantee continuous operation when anomalies happen? All these factors demand a lot from the storage system.

How to guarantee normal operation of the library?

Xi’an University of Technology’s three campuses book volumes are in the hundreds of thousands, daily checkouts are in thousands, and that generates huge amount of data. Loss of this data will affect operation tremendously, thus the safekeeping of the data is vital. Thus an important indicator for the storage system to meet is to guarantee the timely backup and checkout of the information.

How to magnify your investment?

Budget is almost tight. The best way to control budget is to leverage old investment, integrate the old system with the new one, and as digital content grows in size, expansion in storage is inevitable. To control escalating cost, system compatibility and expansibility are must-have features.

IToIP solution

We are ready for today and tomorrow

Build upon its established infrastructure, Xi’an University of Technology wants to build a digital library platform that’s multiple-service, IP-base for easy of use and expansible and compatible with existing platforms and future implementations.

As amount of information increases, performance will not be affected: IP SAN based storage system

H3C’s IP SAN solution uses an all switch platform. All storage units enjoy dedicated bandwidth, not shared, thus performance is superb, even at peak usage, and performance is not affected. Servers and storage are independent of each other, so server downtime would not impact the storage system. An IP SAN system provides high performance, high capacity, and expandability on the fly, and more over, the added capacity would not adversely impact performance.

Data integrity: Ensured by Security Tolerance and Timemark technology

The system employs Security Tolerance Design to compensate for data anomalies generated by hard drive, power, controllers, achieving 99.999% reliability; Via Time-Shift restoration technology, the university can restore all the data to the time right before the error occurred. Data can also be replicated to remote location through IP network to backup.

Reduce system cost: by Virtual Data Management

By employing Virtual Data Management, Xi’an University of Technology’s system integrates the school’s DAS equipment into a unified management system, save system investment and the same time provides a platform for simple management.

IToIP solution analysis

Architecture decides value.

H3C Neocean IX5000 storage system:

With industry’s leading high-end switching platform, the system could be configured according to performance, capacity, features, access and transport distance. This configurability offers great investment protection, expandability, smooth integration and flexibility.

H3C IV5100 virtual data management platform:

Featuring simple management, flexible storage, the system’s innovative virtual data management can also management other vendors systems, which significantly maximizes the utilization of all existing storage systems, and seamlessly integrates all storage systems into single logical system.

It also associates with Neocean IX5000 to form a 1+1 redundant system.

Key technology: TimeMark function to protect data

The system keeps a multiple copies of updated data, so in case of failure, operators can restore the data to state of specified time.

(2008-02-18)