Nexsan Technologies, a leader in energy saving storage solutions, has announced that its SATABeast disk-based storage arrays have been selected by the British Library.
The Nexsan systems will serve as the storage backbone for the library's ongoing digitalisation project aimed at providing secure online access to 300TB of the nation's most treasured published archives both past and present.
Nexsan's storage systems form part of a major undertaking by British Library, commenced in 2005, to digitise an archive of approximately one hundred thousand historical books and make them available worldwide via Microsoft MSN as a service called Live Search Books. The Nexsan equipment will also be used in the British Library's Digital Object Management (DOM) Programme, whose mission is to enable the UK to preserve and use its electronic publications and other non-print material in perpetuity.
The British Library is planning to archive up to 300TB of digital material over the next five years although its storage sub-systems are designed to ultimately accommodate much larger quantities.
"Nexsan's SATABeast is a powerful green storage technology with built-in security and resilience that can handle vast quantities of data and offers excellent value per terabyte," says Paul Wooler, technical analyst with the British Library. "One of the things that most interested us when looking for the right solution was the AutoMAID energy-saving technology that delivers energy savings without compromising performance."
"In common with many organisations, the British Library is very aware of the need to minimise the environmental impact of their data centre," says Bob Woolery, Nexsan's Senior VP of Marketing. "AutoMAID's ability to provide power-savings without sacrificing performance was one of the key reasons the British Library selected Nexsan to help with this long term storage project. Cost correct, energy efficient storage is critical to enabling long term storage projects."
Twelve Nexsan units are already in action. The British Library calculates it will soon be measuring its storage requirements in petabytes and further investment in Nexsan's SATABeasts will be at the heart of it.
"With their tremendous amount of long term data, the British Library is only in the early stages of digitisation," says Mark Smith, technology director at Nexsan reseller S3. "Nexsan provides them with fast, reliable, energy efficient long term data storage technology in a cost correct solution."
About The British Library
The British Library is the national Library of the United Kingdom. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The British Library's vast collections include 13 million books, 7 million manuscripts, 4.5 million maps, 56 million patents, 3.5 million sound recordings, 8 million stamps, and 58 million newspapers in various formats.
About S3
Solid State Solutions Limited trading as S3 is a leading privately owned Information Management Solutions company. Founded in 1988 S3 has jealously maintained its position as an independent vendor. Through a judicious choice of partners and an imaginative and innovative approach, S3 applies advanced technologies and creative thinking to the solution of complex business challenges for a diverse range of clients. The company is based in Bramley, Hampshire and was acquired by Magnos Holdings Limited in October 2005.
About Nexsan Technologies
Nexsan Technologies is the worldwide leader in secure and energy-efficient storage solutions. Nexsan delivers secure storage appliances and modular, high capacity disk storage systems for a broad range of applications including fixed content storage and archiving, compliance and litigation support, primary storage, disk-based backup, digital video security, medical imaging, email and rich media. With a complete line of storage solutions that offer exceptional price/performance, Nexsan is the choice of Fortune Global 500 companies, major governmental agencies, and leading organizations worldwide.
Add a Comment
No messages on this article yet