Archiving isn't the easiest storage project to sell. It's not sexy like a SAN, and it doesn't have a clear bottom-line payoff. But prior to the installation of their archival system, the IT team at Southern Co. couldn't meet its backup windows. Failures were common.
The company's vulnerability hit home last winter when several executives at the Atlanta-based utility lost their shared folders during a backup. That was the last straw.
Plus "the amount of data being backed up was growing so quickly," says Gail Commer, manager of enterprise storage at Southern Co. These factors made the archival piece of the storage strategy a simpler sell. The power company didn't disclose what it spent on the archival system, which is based on Veritas Software Corp.'s Storage Migrator.
Although selling the CIO on the company's SAN integration project was economically justified, archiving isn't necessarily a matter of economics. It's a matter of mitigating risks, which in turn helps prevent data and financial loss.
Once Southern's backup-window times improve and become more reliable with the new archival system, the company should see some significant payback, according to Roger Park, manager of messaging, server support and enterprise storage at Southern Co.
Roger Park: Manager of messaging, server support and enterprise storage, Southern Co., Atlanta
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