Case Study

When Wyoming Machinery Company (WMC) was searching for options to replace its optical data storage solution, it discovered Imation Systems and quickly made the Imation InfiniVault Active Archive Storage Appliance Model 30 an integral part of its IT workflow. Headquartered in Casper, Wyoming, WMC has three main branches serving 16 counties across the state. As the only Caterpillar dealership located in Wyoming, the company has provided industry-leading construction products and support for more than forty years.

The SituationRon Williams, WMC’s information systems manager, was faced with the daunting task of replacing the company’s then-current storage system—an IBM 3995 that was powered by an IBM 520 Power Systems server using iSeries software. With thousands of electronically captured documents and records at stake, Williams knew the task was critical. Without a reliable system to store the documents, customer support and data organization at WMC would come to a halt.

Crystal Rodgers, WMC’s programmer analyst, recognized the company’s data storage needs and stressed the importance of finding an immediate solution to the problem. “We needed a system that could handle all of our sales reports, service records and cold storage archive items,” she said. “It also had to be able to store all of our digital images that we use for documenting past and present service calls—we would have no way of keeping track of customers’ repair histories without it,” she added.

In the meantime, Williams was dealing with several obstacles associated with the operation and maintenance of an optical system: “The optical platters were End-of-Life (EOL), so trying to work within those technologies was impossible, and that was already a concern of ours for over a year. The optical environment was also more labor-intensive, based on the size of the system we had. We had to physically move the platters back and forth. By the time Wyoming Machinery reached 60 platters, we knew we had outgrown optical storage.” In addition, the high cost of maintaining the IBM optical hardware made the need to find a storage solution that provided not only a smooth conversion process, but also a favorable Return on Investment (ROI), all the more important.

The Challenge Williams contacted a local reseller for advice on a data storage replacement, but their only suggestion was another EOL system, an IBM 3996. Dissatisfied with this proposal, Williams reached out to Twinstar, Inc., an integrated solution provider based in Denver, Colorado, which specializes in enterprise content management, enterprise data capture and integration of document imaging with Line of Business (LOB) applications.

Twinstar president Steve Gaumond, who already had an established client relationship with WMC for several years, had several other clients facing similar storage issues: “Optical is a

Wyoming Machinery Rebuilds Storage Solution with Imation InfiniVault™ Active Archive Storage Appliance

AT-A-GLANCE

Industry:Construction Equipment Sales & Service

Application: Service Record Archiving

Digital Image Storage

Solution: Oracle Imaging, Double-Take, Backup Exec

Software: IBM Content Manager OnDemand for enterprise report management; Archiver for Exchange.

Imation Enterprises Corp., 1 Imation Way, Oakdale, MN 55128.3414 USA Ph: 651.704.4000 Fax: 651.537.4675 www.imation.com © Imation Corp. Imation, the Imation logo and InfiniVault are trademarks of Imation Corp and its affiliates. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. (03.09.12)

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dead technology. I think the final ‘silver bullet’ was when Plasmon went out of business. A lot of our customers had optical libraries in place, and didn’t have a reliable way to get these End-of-Life technologies serviced consistently, and I couldn’t stomach that.”

Gaumond was already familiar with the Imation InfiniVault and knew it would be a reliable, affordable and simple solution to WMC’s data storage needs. The InfiniVault’s capacity for unlimited expansion and the 30-year shelf life of its RDX disks also meant it would provide the company with a long-term solution. Since Twinstar had extensive experience helping clients solve similar data storage problems, the company was able to offer its own unique data conversion program as part of the process, which would help pave the way for Wyoming Machinery’s seamless transition to a new storage product.

The SolutionThe Imation InfiniVault was already an established and trusted archival tool for long-term storage across multiple industries, including the construction industry. The InfiniVault has the capacity to plug into an existing network and achieve immediate interoperability with the users’ current application, without any changes to the workflow or network. Optical users struggling with limited storage, high power consumption costs and slow performance can reliably make the switch to a disk-based storage solution, thanks to Imation’s RDX technology. An RDX removable disk in an Imation InfiniVault system uses up to 75% less power and can be stored offsite or onsite due to its small size.

WMC’s switch to Imation InfiniVault yielded almost immediate ROI-positive results based on maintenance overhead alone. The removable 2.5-inch RDX cartridge eliminated the expensive and time-consuming process of manual media handling and the high cost of continually powering the optical drives.

Gaumond is enthusiastic about the Imation technology: “After I researched the Imation InfiniVault for our customers, I found it to be a superior resource for archiving. For starters, you don’t face drive obsolescence the way a user would with optical storage, and that’s one of the most costly ongoing investments optical users have to make. Secondly, I was impressed with Imation InfiniVault’s excellent price/performance value. Unfortunately, an optical storage environment is slow on response time because you’re constantly queuing data; an average response time for an optical system is 20 to 30 seconds, whereas a removable RDX disk can respond in just 2 to 3 seconds.”

A successful collaboration between WMC and Twinstar led to the installation and assessment of an Imation InfiniVault Model 30, which now serves the company’s content management, imaging and IBM OnDemand report archiving needs.

Twinstar’s unique Optical Media Conversion (OMC) service was an essential component to Wyoming Machinery’s seamless transition to its updated storage solution. Performed onsite (remote capabilities are also available), Twinstar IT technicians installed and customized the OMC software to migrate the data from the IBM 3995 to the Imation InfiniVault. The Imation InfiniVault Model 30 offers 10 to 50 TB of uncompressed online data capacity (via removable disk) shared between 10 and 100 disk slots, and an infinite total capacity with various amounts of network disk and levels of scalability. The painless transition to Imation InfiniVault was enhanced by its simple installation and ease of data management once it was in use. The many cost-saving and compliant benefits of RDX storage has secured Gaumond as a proponent of the system: “The backward/forward compatibility, nearly-infinite capacity and 30-year shelf life of RDX disks makes Imation’s technology a bulletproof solution that our customers can trust.”

At WMC, Rogers states, “We were fortunate to obtain a solution that allowed us to get all of the critical data off the optical system and onto the Imation InfiniVault without long-term interruption to Wyoming Machinery’s daily operations.” Williams concurs. “With the Imation InfiniVault, we quickly found out that there really was no other viable long-term storage technology available on the market that met our needs.”

Questions? Contact us at:Phone: 651-704-7777Website: www.scalablestorage.com

“ The backward/forward compatibility, nearly-infinite capacity and 30-year shelf life of RDX disks makes Imation’s technology a bulletproof solution that our customers can trust.

”—Steve Gaumond

President, Twinstar, Inc.