Cal State University, Northridge Adopts Cloud-Based Backup
California State University, Northridge, (CSUN) has switched its offsite data backup protection from a tape- and disk-based system to a cloud-based system.
The university manages approximately 300 terabytes of data storage, which was protected by tape and disk backup systems, but found that the system was becoming increasingly slow and difficult to manage. Because the university owned and operated its own backup infrastructure, it had to regularly spend money upgrading their equipment or increasing the capacity of offsite data protection. CSUN wanted to improve the efficiency of its backup system, reduce the amount of space required for backups, and get away from using campus-owned offsite storage.
After some initial hesitation about using cloud storage, primarily because of concerns about bandwidth costs, data security, and control over capacity, the university made the decision to switch to Panzura Global Cloud Storage System using Panzura's encrypted Quicksilver Cloud Storage Controllers.
CSUN uses Symantec NetBackup software to manage its backups. According to Chris Olsen, senior director of infrastructure services and ISO at CSUN, the configuration process was simple because they just had to change Symantec NetBackup's target to the Panzura Quicksilver Cloud Storage Controller, and the software immediately recognized the new destination. For security, the data backed up is protected by RSA 4096-bit encryption, and the university owns the encryption keys. Olsen also said that the solution's data deduplication capabilities exceeded expectations.
Key features of Panzura Global Cloud Storage Solution include:
- Integration with existing infrastructure;
- Global integration of all enterprise sites and a public or private cloud;
- Elimination of local backup and archive storage requirements;
- Global consolidation of distributed Tier-2+ storage capacity;
- Reduction of storage overhead;
- Access to any data from anywhere, at any time;
- Full local network-attached storage (NAS) features; and
- Military-grade encryption and FIPS 140-2 validation.
California State University, Northridge, serves 35,000 students and employs 5,000 faculty and staff. The campus operates two primary data centers, as well as a hot failover environment for critical systems at California State University, Sacramento.
Further information about Panzura Global Cloud Storage Solution can be found at panzura.com.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at leilameyer@gmail.com.