Nexsan Takes Central Role in University of Bristol's Disk-based Backup Strategy

• Monday, 06 November 2006

SATABeast Also Provides Storage for NAS systems

Derby, UK – 6 November, 2006: Nexsan Technologies, the leader in innovative and secure storage solutions, today announced that its SATABeast has been selected by the University of Bristol for a new disk-to-disk backup capability that enhances existing measures for protecting mission critical services, including disaster recovery.

Founded in 1876, the University of Bristol was the first higher education institution in England to admit women on an equal basis to men. Today it is one of the UK’s premier higher educational establishments. It has 45 departments and 15 research centres arranged in six faculties serving around 12,000 full-time students and 5,000 staff.

Installed in the University’s data centre, the SATABeast is being used by the IT Department to keep images of mission critical servers' system disks. These images could play a vital role should the University ever need to re-build a server or set of servers after an incident or "disaster".

The University is also running a pilot using the SATABeast to provide NAS (Network Attached Storage) for resilient, backed-up file storage for individual academic departments. The equipment is also expected to provide file-based NAS storage for mission-critical servers to complement the University’s Storage Area Network (SAN).

University of Bristol has purchased two Nexsan SATABeast Fibre Channel Storage Arrays, with dual controllers and 2GB Cache upgrade per controller. The arrays have fourteen 500GB disks initially giving them 7TB per unit. These have since been upgraded to 28 500GB disks in each array, giving them 14TB per unit. One of the features that attracted the University to Nexsan was the power and cooling savings made possible through AutoMAID™ (Massive Array of Idle Disks), an embedded Nexsan technology that automatically reduces power consumption and heat generation on idle drives

“We selected the SATABeast after surveying a number of high-density storage options,” says Jan Grant, IT administrator. “We had some constraints on space and power and the SATABeast was well suited to this.”

“The performance of the SATABeast in these roles is surprisingly good. We have been very pleased with the devices,” he continues, “they do exactly what we're after and are simple and straightforward to administer.”

The Nexsan systems were recommended to Bristol University by Cristie, an independent Storage Solution Provider. “We chose to recommend the Nexsan SATABeast as the most appropriate solution based on the performance, reliability and cost of the systems,” says John Woolley, UK & Ireland Sales Manager. “We handled the delivery, implementation, configuration and testing. Our Professional Services division continues to add value through the handling of all first line support calls and escalation to Nexsan where necessary.”

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About Cristie

Cristie is a European data storage & management organisation. Its head office is in Stroud, UK and it has subsidiaries in Frankfurt, Germany and Stockholm, Sweden. The company has achieved BSI ISO 9001:2000 and is a tier 1 approved G-CAT supplier (Government Catalogue – for local Government and public sector purchasing).

Cristie’s solution division designs and implements innovative and cost effective data storage solutions. Cristie is one of a small number of independent specialised storage resellers with in depth knowledge of both legacy systems from major vendors such as EMC, IBM and HP as well as of new and emerging storage technologies and products. Our approach is to fully understand our customers’ immediate and longer term requirements and to design solutions that meet these in the most cost effective manner taking into account both technology and financial factors. A key component of our design is the flexibility to scale the storage without loss of performance, to incorporate new technologies when they become available and to minimise dependence on any particular manufacturer.

More information can be found at www.cristie.co.uk & www.cristie.com

About Nexsan Technologies

Nexsan Technologies, headquartered in Derby, UK has changed the way IT managers are storing and protecting corporate data. From the outset, Nexsan has moved to the forefront because it recognized the need for corporate managers to 'do more with less.' Nexsan was the first to deliver award-winning storage solutions that provide correct-cost pricing, without sacrificing features and performance -- attributes that make good business sense for virtually every size company. Every Nexsan product is a total solution, with unprecedented ease of use, features, performance and reliability, all priced to fit the requirements of IT managers worldwide.

For more information, please see the company's website at www.nexsan.com.

Nexsan and SATABeast are trademarks of Nexsan Technologies. All other brand and product names are, or may be trademarks of their respective owners.

For further information:

Paul Shlackman, BondPR, Tel: +44 1628 673007, Email: paul@bondpr.com

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