PowerFile Paves the Way to Simplified Storage Archiving

WebKnowHow
Monday, February 12, 2007; 06:18 AM

PowerFile Inc., an innovator in archive appliances for permanent storage of digital content and assets, today announced that Terex Roadbuilding, a division of the world’s third-largest manufacturer of construction equipment, has adopted the company’s Permanent Storage Appliance as a centralized repository of fixed-content data based on the solution’s ease of implementation, ease of use and dramatic cost savings.

With more than 75 concrete and asphalt product lines, Terex Roadbuilding has the industry’s broadest offering today. Needing a better way to store archival legacy drawings of this heavy equipment – some as old as 50 years – and employee changed files, Terex Roadbuilding deployed a 1.7TB PSA unit to serve as a central repository and single platform that eliminated the need for maintaining as many as 25 legacy storage systems and 10 different media types. Offloading this fixed content from primary storage also allowed the company to save nearly 75 percent of infrastructure costs associated with keeping it on Terex Roadbuilding’s RAID-5 disk-based system.

“The biggest advantage to owning PowerFile’s Permanent Storage Appliance is that it allows me to put my focus on our core business instead of managing archival storage. My involvement is now minimal since our staff can ‘self service’ the archive, which is just another directory on the network. In the past, they would spend three to four hours a week just to manually pull archival data from different sources,” said Charles Tasse, Vice President of IT for Terex Roadbuilding. “I looked at three or four other solutions but PowerFile’s simple approach to solving the issues related to data archiving is really unmatched in the industry and stood head and shoulders above other parties’. It was an easy decision.”

Tasse said that the system’s expandability was a key aspect to his decision. The company is currently using it at its Oklahoma City headquarters but is looking to scale the system further as it implements a wide area network to include five other manufacturing locations worldwide. Currently, 50 users are automatically adding to the archive and retrieving archival data but those numbers will quadruple when the other offices are online.

“We have designed our solutions to help minimize the negative effects of IT staffs’ involvement in actively maintaining archived data by decreasing the complexity, cost and burden of managing their fixed content,” said Jonathan Buckley, Vice President of Marketing for PowerFile. “By designing a system that can be set up and configured in minutes, is transparent to the user and enables the consolidation of archival data into one central location, we have enabled companies, such as Terex, to concentrate their efforts on responding to their customers’ needs rather than focusing on the mundane aspects of data storage and retrieval functions.”

PowerFile's one-of-a-kind archiving solution provides a new and innovative approach to long-term, unalterable data that enables both online access and long-term storage. The Permanent Storage Appliance overcomes challenges in the enterprise by completely virtualizing a massive array of disks behind a network attached front end so nothing unique needs to be administered, managed or learned. The Permanent Storage Appliance is ideal for long-term storage and regulatory compliance in organizations of all sizes. The system comes pre-configured with powerful storage management software that virtualizes the DVD subsystem into storage volumes in any required increments. Hot-swappable, redundant components allow for high availability and increased reliability, while the modular design enhances field serviceability.

About PowerFile

PowerFile, Inc. is an innovator in online archive solutions designed specifically for long-term storage of fixed digital content. PowerFile's award-winning solutions combine the speed of online access with the economy and integrity of traditional archives to empower organizations of all sizes to efficiently manage and preserve valuable digital assets. PowerFile product offering consists of intelligent storage management software and cost-effective, robust hardware.