Spartanburg County School District Two (SCSDT) is a growing South Carolina education system which includes 14 schools, 54,000 residents and a student population of 10,000.
Nightly backup requirements consist of approximately 25GB of data, including a local data center and 14 remote sites. The data includes a mixture of platforms including SQL databases, Oracle databases, text files, images and video. Typical data includes student schoolwork, teacher creative and student curriculums and district financial data.
Troy Moore, director of technology for SCSDT, faced the daunting task of having local, non-IT trained personnel perform the daily backup of all the servers located in the 14 schools throughout the district. Data was being lost, and Moore realized that he needed a solution that was centrally located, cross-platform friendly and easier to manage.
Moore chose the STORServer Backup Appliance because it allowed him to centrally manage cross-platform, local and remote data. He also likes the fact that he could delegate the task of administration to less experienced staff.
“We selected the appliance because it’s a centralized solution that allows the administrator to manage all of the backups from a single location, eliminating all of the problems created by our previous process,” said Moore.
The appliance solution is scalable, allowing Moore to expand the solution as his amount of critical data grows.
While SCSDT hasn’t calculated the savings accrued using the appliance, a lot of time is being saved that used to be spent managing backups. “I couldn’t ask for better support than what STORServer offers,” said Moore.
“But, the best aspect of having the appliance is its ease of use. I simply come in and see what needs to be checked out. I take care of it, and then go spend my time focusing on other IT issues.”
Moore is also a proponent of the STORServer Console (SSC) software, which simplifies administration, allowing him to delegate management to lesser skilled staff.
“The new STORServer Console interface makes it so much easier to perform backups,” said Moore. “Using the software to schedule critical tasks eliminates the guesswork associated with the traditional daily administration of TSM.”
