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EAGLE Assists Quick Study Radiology in Large Data Migration

St. Louis, MO -- December, 2008 -- When Chris Wilson, IT Director for Quick Study Radiology, saw the need to simplify his storage infrastructure, he called on EAGLE Software to partner with him on a solution. QSR had worked with EAGLE in 2007, on a data protection project which included CommVault software for backup, recovery and data migration. “We had utilized EAGLE in the past, and knew they had the expertise to help us sort out our storage issues,” explained Wilson. “What I didn’t anticipate was how quickly and smoothly the project would go with EAGLE’s professional services.”

Quick Study Radiology, located in St. Louis, Missouri offers radiological services through PACS and RIS that allow patients at community hospitals to have their images read by the best radiologists in the country. In addition, they provide storage, archiving and distribution of these images for community hospitals across the U.S. Wilson and his IT team at QSR were challenged with the task of migrating 24 TB of critical data files to a centralized repository. This data, mostly backups of medical images, resided in several locations including an OnStor NAS gateway, and a Xiotech Magnitude 3D SAN array.

“We originally thought we might need to purchase a new storage array to house this critical backup data. Our Xiotech Magnitude SAN was close to was running out of space,” explained Wilson. However, EAGLE’s onsite evaluation of the environment showed that the OnStor’s RAID protection was duplicating raid sets already existing on QSR’s Xiotech Magnitude. With the elimination of duplicated backup files, additional space on the Magnitude could be reclaimed to house backup data.

EAGLE’s answer was to first migrate a clean copy of the data to temporary storage. The next step was to eliminate the OnStor unit from the environment, and move the data back to a central location on QSR’s existing Magnitude 3D.

QSR lacked some of the resources to move such a massive amount of data. “It was a logistical challenge,” explained Wilson. “Facilitating the file copy of the huge data set from the OnStor was daunting and the liability associated with the loss of these records could have been devastating. EAGLE had the expertise in working with all the solutions – CommVault, Xiotech, and OnStor -- which made the migration of this critical data go very smoothly.”

Outside of an upgrade of the Xiotech Magnitude 3D to iSCSI controllers, the only additional hardware expenditure required for the project was the purchase of a Spectra Logic T50e tape library to archive the backups to tape. “This was a logical purchase, as the cost of the new library was about the same as the cost of maintenance for our old tape library,” explained Wilson.

In today’s corporate climate where IT budgets are tight, and resources are slim, gaining more life out of existing technology has been a big win for Wilson and his team. “Repurposing our existing storage allowed us to utilize enhanced features of our Magnitude like virtualization that the other solutions we were considering didn’t offer,” noted Wilson. “By extending the life of the storage we already owned and eliminating maintenance and support on the OnStor and Fibre backbone, I’d estimate we decreased IT Operating expenses by $230,000 this year.”

EAGLE distributes a full line of storage and backup products including tape library backup solutions, backup and recovery software packages, and SAN and NAS storage solutions. EAGLE also provides pre-sales evaluation and design, integration and support services.

For more information on EAGLE's products and services, contact: EAGLE Software, 123 Indiana Ave., Salina, KS 67401; Phone (800) 477-5432; Fax: (785) 823-6185; email: contact@eaglesoft.com; website: http://www.storagebyeagle.com.

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