The company's hefty internal applications have also put the squeeze on data-storage space. Southern's homegrown TCMS (Trouble Call Management System) application, for example, uses heavy graphics and GIS (geographical information system) data to help the company detect where a power outage has occurred, Commer says. When a customer calls in an outage, the location of his or her residence is illuminated on an electronic map so the utility can determine the location of the downed substation or transformer.
Southern also runs several applications that store geographic and hydroelectric information, and several applications that map the lakes and land the utility manages for its power generation and resources.
The company backs up about half of its corporate data across three SANs, which are located at data centers in Atlanta, Birmingham, Ala., and Inverness, Ala. The amount of data backed up to these SANs is increasing, while remote sites are starting to back up their data to regional hub sites instead of locally. Backing up their data to the SANs via the corporate WAN requires too much bandwidth.
SANity Check
Southern is in the process of consolidating its SAN software with Veritas' Storage Migrator. It's also moving its backup to a single software platform, Veritas NetBackup, replacing separate packages for its legacy and Windows NT data (Arcserv and Legato). Storage Migrator manages storage parameters, backup and restore, and archiving. The company says it hopes to finish converting its roughly 400 corporate servers, as well as its remote sites, to regional hub backups within the two years.
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