"We started doing shared storage in the backup space, and we started running into backup-window problems," Mixer says. "We back up around 50 Tbytes of data a week in daily incrementals and weekend backups, and our storage is growing between 5 and 6 percent a month... You cant push that much data through the system in so few hours, so we needed to upgrade our technology."
The investment bank was using a number of the Quantum P1000 tape libraries and three large P3000 libraries, but that wasnt enough to get the job done. "We just couldnt push enough data through them fast enough, especially on the weekend."
In addition, Mixer says, there was the cost of using older DLT 40/80 tape drive technology. We were spending about a quarter of a million dollars a month just on DLT tapes, he says, pointing out that the warranty on much of the Quantum technology had expired, forcing the bank to pay annual maintenance fees. So we were trying to reduce the cost of the backup, and reduce the huge consumption of tapes.
By switching to StorageTek L700 libraries instead, Mixer says, the investment bank hopes to save more than $1 million a year on media costs.
In his email to Byte and Switch, Zeglin insists that the performance problems the bank was experiencing were due to the fact it was using older models of the Quantum products. "[This is] not an issue of service or lack of proper product performance," he says. "These products are performing at their level of capacity, which was state-of-the-art when purchased two to three years ago."
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