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Calling for Backup: School Districts Are Searching for Ways to Manage Their Ever-Increasing Volumes of Content. New Technologies Are Here to Help

AS SCHOOL DISTRICTS struggle with how to store, manage, and back up rapidly growing masses of content--gigs of e-mail, Web, audio, and video files--the data management industry hears their pain. Data storage and management systems are evolving, with new solutions that make it easier for users to choose what to save, to back up lots of data quickly, and to perform restores routinely. Beyond the issue of configuring a storage network is determining what hardware and software to use. Choosing backup and storage management software is usually, though not always, a separate decision from choosing hardware. A commonly used software solution is Symantec Software Backup Exec (www.symantec.com), a product formerly owned by Veritas. Symantec now ships a version for most operating systems--including Windows, NetWare, Linux, and Apple Mac OS X. The software works with tapes or disks. One way school districts can deal with the complexity of backup issues in one fell swoop is through a single integrated solution. The advantage is what the term implies--a single system to purchase and install, and a single vendor to contact for customer support. For Dare County Schools in North Carolina, this option made the most sense. Dare County is a fairly technologically sophisticated district, with 2,600 computers districtwide and cable TV in classrooms. Also, most of the schools' sites are connected to each other via high-speed wire. But because the 5,000-student district sits on the infamous Outer Banks, being able to recover data after a big storm isn't a luxury. Recent storms to hit town include Isabel, the infamous Category 5 hurricane from the 2003 season. The ongoing threat made the implementation of a solid backup and storage management solution critical for the district, which until two years ago was relying on direct attached storage, or DAS (see "The Power of One," page 23). That meant the district's 30-odd servers in 12 locations were backed up by 12 separate tape backup systems. In the event of a storm warning, Dare's technology director, Carl Woody, had to trust that someone at each site grabbed the backup tapes before evacuating--and had performed the backup correctly the night before. And restores were time-consuming--simply finding the needed file on the correct tape could take hours. To improve the situation, in 2005 the district moved to a single integrated solution from StorServer (www.storserver.com) that incorporates a server, disks, a tape drive, and backup software in a rack-mounted appliance. The district now backs up not just to tapes, but to disks, too (see "Disks vs. Tapes," page 22). The StorServer solution cost about $40,000; that's balanced against savings in the form of various software licenses the district no longer needs, fewer backup tapes because there's no redundancy, and time savings for personnel because the system is now automated. The biggest advantage of disks over tape, Woody says, is speed. "There's no rewind, no fast-forward; you just go right to" the data to be restored, Woody says. That makes the job of recovering a single file far faster. "A task that took 45 minutes, now takes five." Another benefit of an option such as StorServer is that the entire storage solution comes from one vendor. That appealed to Dare County, since the district had been using two backup software products, CA ARCserve and Veritas Backup Exec, and a separate Dell EMC server for other storage needs. "There were too many different points of failure," Woody says. "With StorServer, any problem we might have is with StorServer." Making Things Easy Although storage and data management can seem overwhelming as data volumes grow, new solutions make the chore easier. Also, recent disasters such as Hurricane Katrina have put data storage and backup needs front and center with management, making it easier to pry dollars loose for such expenses. …