Willow Starcom teaches college the value of data

Cardinal Newman College has its storage problems solved ­ and its lost data retrieved ­ by local VAR

Darren Harrison

Networking and storage VAR Willow Starcom has completed a data retrieval and backup project for Preston’s Cardinal Newman College.

The reseller deployed a Tandberg Data StorageLibrary T40 with two LTO-4 drives offering fibre channel connectivity, along with BakBone NetVault backup software.

The college’s IT team approached Willow Starcom complaining that their backup tapes would regularly jam and the speed to write tapes would frequently exceed a 24-hour time frame, causing them to abort the backup.

Darren Harrison, technical director at Willow Starcom, said: “Due to the college’s existing IT environment, the Tandberg hardware solved 80 per cent of its issues and the BakBone software resolved the rest.

“It took about five days to roll out. It was a new contract for us, and they will now receive ongoing support.” Rick Boyce, network developer in the college’s network services department, said the college was seeking a solution that would last for at least the next three years.

“A recent power failure caused by building work left the data in the Storage Library intact and backup operations resumed seamlessly once power was restored,” said Boyce.