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Guest Nibble

How an $8 billion company knocked 8 hours off its backup cycle by using StorageCentral SRM to prune obsolete data from the network...

Tom Fairhurst, Network Administrator, Boise Cascade, International Falls, Minnesota relates his experience with StorageCentral SRM

article contributed by Steven Toole VP of Marketing for WQuinn

StorageCentral SRM paid for itself right out of the box. It helped reduce our primary file server's full backup window by 30% and, likewise, reclaim about 25% of the wasted space on that server. These two events helped us to better prepare for moving our files to our new storage Xiotech Magnitude SAN. Now, StorageCentral SRM is going to help us keep the cost of this very active file area under control as we pay for only the SAN space we need. Up until now, about 1,200 employees at our plant stored their home directories on a Windows NT, 70-gigabyte Gateway file server. It also houses some shared departmental directories and one directory used by the entire plant. However, the window for a full backup had grown to about 24 hours.

Before we could even think of moving any files to the SAN, we felt it necessary to audit the contents of this server by running StorageCentral SRM reports showing the characteristics of files. Reports, such as duplicates, files older than a year, files by media type, and usage by share, enabled us to pinpoint pockets of wasted space and to isolate the problem. Apparently, most of our employees had been dumping every file they had to their home directory just in case they needed a file down the road. Immediately we launched a clean-up campaign, telling everyone we'd be allocating 150-megabytes for home directory space, and holding everyone to his or her space allocation. We added that they'd have a month to go through their files and get rid of what they didn't need or to us see about having files burned to CD.

If a home directory exceeded the 150-megabyte amount, I used StorageCentral SRM to send the employee a report via (an Excel spreadsheet) listing his or her files. Making sure employees didn't move their files in the departmental shared folders became a key concern to us. Once a week we ran StorageCentral SRM reports to see if the size of the home directories decreased and the size of the shared folders increased. Everyone cooperated; the helpdesk phone didn't get many calls. Those employees who truly needed more space got it. Within a month, we freed up about 20 gigabytes of wasted space. Overall, for every employee whose files we archived, we had six employees who found they didn't need to keep a lot of files.

Reducing this amount of space enabled us to chop eight hours off our backup window. So, we could now do a full back on Friday night rather than waiting for the weekend. During the week, we backup only the changes since the last backup. Next, we turned on StorageCentral SRM's ability to monitor the amount of space everyone used. As employees reach 90 percent of their space allocation, StorageCentral SRM sends them a message saying how much space they have left, and what they need to do in order to free up space. If employees hit their space limit, they can save what they are working, but must free up space or call the helpdesk. Employees understand the reason they need to stay within their limit and take the appropriate measures to do so. Meanwhile, we'll need to use StorageCentral SRM on the SAN to maintain good file management practices to shrink our backup window even further. In fact, since the tape library will be directly attached to the SAN, we can backup files faster than relying on files traveling across the network. To this end, the logistics of avoiding backing up unnecessary files means more to us than the shrinking cost of disk space.

We also plan to use the same type of home directory space allocation and monitoring procedures on the SAN. Of course, we plan to put in similar procedures for shared departmental folders. By running StorageCentral SRM reports across each shared departmental folder, we can easily determine how much space we should allocate to each folder. We also plan to have the alerts go to those employees who are responsible for each folder. StorageCentral SRM's file blocking feature will help us automatically to enforce some of the company's policies for where employees can store their files. For example, employees aren't supposed to store digital images in their home directories, but in shared departmental folders for digital images. With StorageCentral SRM, we can set filters on certain media file types, and designate the areas that are to be blocked from storing these files types, or designate those areas that can accept these file types. If employees try to save a blocked file type in their home directory, they'll get a warning message saying why they can't store that file.

Our initial research about StorageCentral SRM gave our us the impression it was a top-rated product. Our experience with StorageCentral SRM confirms this to be true.

about the customer site:-

...Boise Cascade Corp, based in Boise, Idaho, ranks as the country's largest integrated manufacturer and distributor of paper and wood products. The company is also a major U. S. distributor of office products and building materials. Boise Cascade owns and manages more than 2 million acres of timberland in the U.S, ensuring the protection of all wildlife, plants, soil, and air and water quality. The company's premier pulp and paper mills make their home in International Falls, Minnesota. In fact, the company is one of the largest employers in northern Minnesota. Boise Cascade had revenue of $8 billion for fiscal year 2000.