LeftHand Networks Gets High Marks in Education

BOULDER, Colo.— LeftHand Networks®, the leading provider of complete iSCSI storage area network (SAN) solutions built using patented network storage clustering technology, has demonstrated significant growth in the education industry by providing Campus SAN solutions to over 30 universities throughout the United States. This announcement further demonstrates LeftHand’s leadership in providing value to institutions looking to receive data protection without moving data off-site.

With the majority of data storage and computing facilities located in one room, IT functions are typically left vulnerable to hardware failures due to HVAC malfunctions, sprinkler activation, inadvertent unplugging of servers or equipment from the power supply, fires, and floods. LeftHand provides an affordable solution that protects data from localized disasters. LeftHand’s SAN/iQ software includes a patented synchronous replication scheme that writes data a specified number of times across multiple storage modules on the network and allows institutions to spread out mission critical data between multiple rooms, departments or buildings within the campus without the risk of data loss. The iSCSI SAN also allows for unlimited scalability, flexible storage volume management and real-time replication capabilities.

“Universities of all sizes face the same challenge of storing critical data for thousands of students and administrators. In these environments, loss of data can be catastrophic,” said Fred Moore, president of the information strategies consulting firm, Horison Inc. “We have found that the LeftHand SAN has no single point of failure and eliminates the financial impact suffered due to downtime.”

Campus SAN infrastructures powered by LeftHand Networks have gained tremendous traction throughout the education market. Here’s what some of LeftHand’s customers have to say:

Coppin State University – Mitch PreVatte, Director of Network Service – “Data growth in the field of education is an exponential function. You can buy data storage and find out six months later that data has grown more than expected. We needed a solution that was simple to scale and would provide an easy to manage alternative to our costly fibre channel SAN. The LeftHand iSCSI SAN fit our entire scenario. With LeftHand we have data protection that is equivalent to the EMC solution, but it is much easier to maintain, not to mention less expensive.”

Fitchburg State College – Charlie Maner, CIO – LeftHand’s Campus SAN approach allows our school to place storage servers on separate power grids. Due to extreme weather in New England, having storage servers sit on separate power grids provides an added layer of data protection. We moved from a direct-attached storage environment to having a full implemented disaster recovery set-up with LeftHand Networks. What used to take five hours to recover information due to environmental issues or human error now takes a matter of minutes.”

University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) – Jim O’Leary, IT manager – “We evaluated different storage vendors and found that LeftHand Networks was the best choice for our Linux environment. The features that are inherent to the LeftHand solution would cost several times the amount with Fibre Channel solutions. With 20 terabytes of storage, the LeftHand Networks iSCSI SAN leverages our existing Ethernet infrastructure and allows the school to easily add storage as needed without compromising performance and at a price that we can afford.”

More information can be found in the white paper, “Achieving High Availability and Disaster Recovery with Campus SANs,” written by Fred Moore of Horison Information Strategies. The white paper is located at the following address: http://www.lefthandnetworks.com/cmp.php?cid=46&m=499.

About LeftHand Networks
LeftHand Networks pioneered IP-based storage area networks (SAN) in 2001. SANs built using LeftHand’s SAN/iQ® software are uniquely able to distribute and protect data across a cluster of industry-standard storage servers. The company’s patented architecture increases data availability, allows users to start small and grow the SAN seamlessly, and simplifies management. The LeftHand SAN is ideal for primary storage and server consolidation, centralized backup, and the disaster recovery. For more information, contact LeftHand at info@lefthandnetworks.com.