NetApp has announces that the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the international scientific, conservation and education charity that owns ZSL London Zoo and ZSL Whipsnade Zoo, has chosen NetApp to revamp its data infrastructure to support its research and zoo business in a more efficient manner, which will help it preserve wildlife for future generations.
As a leading charity running two zoos and conservation projects in more than 50 countries globally, data is vital to ZSL. It runs a large number of applications that are central to its research and academic output as well as its daily operations, including ticketing and membership systems, all of which produce a significant mass of data.
Five years ago, ZSL adopted a network-attached storage model with NetApp. As the business evolved, ZSL was ready for a refresh to bring more storage capacity and faster speeds to support its growing organisational needs.
Through its long-standing partner S3 Consulting, ZSL upgraded to NetApp FAS2500 series hybrid storage arrays to provide an infrastructure that could cope with its ever-growing data needs. NetApp's hybrid storage arrays deliver the robust capabilities that will allow ZSL to seamlessly deploy NAS, SAN workloads and all flash systems in the future, should it experience changes to its performance needs.
Integrated with NetApp, ZSL selected Catalogic DPX NSB for its archiving solution, which reduces backup and recovery times, while providing data protection and reducing operational costs.
As a result of this NetApp deployment, ZSL has seen a significant reduction in response times for it's ticketing and finance systems, with 46% deduplication achieved on its production system. These new efficiencies have led to the following benefits:
- Reduced transaction times
- Enhanced customer experience for members of the public.
- Reduced backup times from one week to one hour
- Freed up time for research and business development
Nick Napier, Head of ICT at the Zoological Society of London said: "We already had a good experience with NetApp, and after looking at several other competing technologies, it was demonstrably clear that refreshing NetApp provided significant cost savings. We now have a very intuitive platform which is easy to manage, and NetApp's support is top class. The benefits of how and what we can now back up are a huge step up from our old solution, and we now have a fully future-proofed investment."
Elliot Howard, UK & Ireland Country Manager for NetApp said: "ZSL's infrastructure upgrade has clearly had a positive impact on the charity, enabling them to stay a world-leader in the conservation of animals and their natural habitats. The availability of data is vital to any business or research body, and for ZSL access to this data at any time means it is able to continue with vital research, while also maintaining a high quality of customer service in its zoos."
Robert Galt, CTO for S3 Consulting said: "Working with Nick's team, Netapp and Catalogic in this manner has allowed ZSL to make improvements to their storage capacity, backup and system management. ZSL recognised that as the demands of the business were growing, they needed to make a change to how they delivered on storage and backup as part of their virtualised infrastructure. As a result, they are leading the way in the modern business approach to IT delivery, with an infrastructure that is robust and efficient in all the areas that mattered to them..."
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