Winthrop University Implements Optimized Storage Solution To Eliminate I/O Bottlenecks

Winthrop University in South Carolina has implemented a scalable optimized storage solution to eliminate application input/output (I/O) performance bottlenecks.

Winthrop University manages a centralized storage infrastructure with more than 100 Windows and Linux servers. The university had been using a combination of direct-attached storage (DAS), network-attached storage (NAS), and storage area network (SAN) solutions, but they had limitations that were affecting application performance and reliability, and they were expensive and difficult to scale.

After researching solutions, the university selected the Grid, an optimized storage solution from Gridstore. According to the company, the Grid is software-defined storage that combines Server-Side Virtual Controller (SVC) technology with a grid architecture and uses massively parallel I/O and parallel processing. It also self-optimizes to each application or virtual machine across both virtual and physical environments.

Winthrop University uses the Grid to speed up its disk-to-disk backup operations, increase scalability, and eliminate the need to over-provision storage resources, according to Gridstore. The university also plans to use Gridstore to optimize its Windows Hyper-V Server environment with the goal of achieving 100 percent data redundancy for its virtual infrastructure in an offsite data center.

According to the company, the Grid allows organizations to independently scale capacity, I/O, and processing as needed to attaching additional storage nodes to the network.

"The Grid offered a value proposition we couldn't pass up," said James Hammond, associate vice president for information technology at Winthrop University, in a prepared statement. "With great scalability, superior cost control, and automatic optimization for our applications, there was no need to over-provision our storage as we had to before."

Winthrop University is a public liberal arts university located just outside of Charlotte, SC. It serves more than 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Further information about the Grid can be found at gridstore.com.

About the Author

Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at [email protected].

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