U Western Ontario Implements Hybrid Storage for Online Lectures

The University of Western Ontario has implemented a hybrid storage appliance to ensure continuous availability of its online video lectures.

In response to demand from students and faculty, the university has recently begun making recordings of lectures available online. However, the need to store, play back, share and replicate video meant the university needed to deploy a new media server and increase its storage capacity and performance.

The IT team checked out storage appliances from various vendors, looking for one that could meet its needs for capacity and performance, as well as reliability. Ultimately, they chose a hybrid storage appliance from StorTrends.

The university had already been using two StorTrends 3200i storage systems in a virtual environment with great success for the past seven years, so they felt very confident in their decision to expand their StorTrends implementation.

"When I started here there were already two StorTrends 3200i's that had been here for about four to five years," said Clint Bourdeau, network systems specialist at the university, in a prepared statement. "They ran flawlessly, untouched for about two more years. I didn't even have to reboot the boxes. I really paid very little attention to them. So when it was time to add storage for our video project, I was already looking  in StorTrends' direction."

The StorTrends hybrid appliance offers expansion capabilities up to 256 TB, providing ample space for the university's online video storage. According to the company, the appliance "delivers extreme throughput capabilities and true enterprise-class performance along with WAN optimization, automated data tiering and thin provisioning features" to support the university's video streaming initiative.

In conjunction with the online video streaming project, the university is also using StorTrends to provide centralized file storage support for its Hyper-V environment and snapshot backup for its data recovery processes.

The University of Western Ontario is a public research university located in London, Ontario, Canada, serving more than 22,000 full-time students.

About the Author

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

Featured

  • abstract pattern of shapes, arrows and circuit lines

    Internet2 Announces a New President and CEO to Step Up in October

    Internet2, the member-driven nonprofit offering advanced network technology services and cyberinfrastructure to the research and education community has completed its search, which began this past May, for a new president and CEO to take the helm.

  • shield with an AI microchip emblem hovering above stacks of gold coins

    AI Security Spend Surges While Traditional Security Budgets Shrink

    A new Thales report reveals that while enterprises are pouring resources into AI-specific protections, only 8% are encrypting the majority of their sensitive cloud data — leaving critical assets exposed even as AI-driven threats escalate and traditional security budgets shrink.

  • stack of gold coins disintegrates into digital particles against a dark circuit-board background with glowing AI imagery

    MIT Report: Most Organizations See No Business Return on Gen AI Investments

    A recent report out of the MIT Media Lab found that despite $30-40 billion in enterprise spending on generative AI, 95% of organizations are seeing no business return.

  • young man in a denim jacket scans his phone at a card reader outside a modern glass building

    Colleges Roll Out Mobile Credential Technology

    Allegion US has announced a partnership with Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) and Denison College, in conjunction with Transact + CBORD, to install mobile credential technologies campuswide. Implementing Mobile Student ID into Apple Wallet and Google Wallet will allow students access to campus facilities, amenities, and residence halls using just their phones.