FileCensus Case Studies
Data storage has become a runaway train for enterprise IT. At Macquarie Bank, storage requirements were doubling every six months. Queensland Health faced 600GB of unidentified data. Leeds City Council struggled with 3.0TB of unstructured files across 120 servers. These organizations were drowning in data with no way to understand what they had or how to manage it.
The transformation came faster than anyone expected. Within 20 minutes of installing FileCensus, Macquarie Bank gained meaningful insights into their storage needs. Leeds City Council finally mapped 17.5 million files and their access patterns. Queensland Health stabilized years of unchecked growth in just five months.
But the real story isn't just about cleaning up storage - it's about transforming IT operations. These organizations shifted from reactive firefighting to strategic planning. They implemented chargeback systems to drive accountability. They moved rarely-accessed data to lower-cost storage tiers. Most importantly, they gained the visibility needed to make informed decisions about future storage investments. What started as a storage management solution became a strategic advantage.
Macquarie Bank
Macquarie Bank installed FileCensus worldwide three years ago, and within 20 minutes was gaining meaningful insights into its storage needs. Until then, data storage requirements were doubling every six months. Extremely costly, the exponential increase also constantly changed IT priorities when storage space looked like running out to ensure the business was not impacted. "Before we implemented FileCensus, all we could do was react in a time-costly manner when a space problem looked imminent," said Tim Mallyon, Associate Director, Infrastructure Technology Services.
"Demand for storage has now plateaued and, in some cases, decreased," he said. "The return on our investment represents a substantial saving, from lower storage costs to reducing the impact on the business." FileCensus empowers Macquarie Bank's infrastructure managers to manage storage needs properly. "Before, we had limited knowledge about stored files. Now we are completely proactive and can see in an instant the types and quantities of files on our servers. It delivers us control over these files in respect of age, duplication, relevance, historical comparisons and completeness of data migration," Tim said.
Without service interruptions caused by servers filling up, users across Macquarie Bank have adopted a user pays chargeback system. Since FileCensus helps make available to Macquarie the space they need, cost centres are happy to pay for disk consumption. FileCensus costs are also charged to users. Intermine is pleased to announce that Macquarie Bank was so satisfied as a customer of FileCensus that Macquarie has become a shareholder of Intermine.
Macquarie Bank uses FileCensus to increase control over the enterprise file systems, reduce costs and enhance efficient network management. At Macquarie Bank offices worldwide, FileCensus is engaged to manage storage resources for 5300 users, enable capacity planning, and simplify storage network clean-up. The system aids file security and backup insight while enabling a chargeback system to departments. It functions on Windows, Solaris and Netware operating platforms and manages DAS and SAN storage resources.
FileCensus is the most scalable, cross-platform and efficient Storage Resource Management solution for business data on the market today. It enables organizations to manage their storage assets - more efficiently, with less effort.
Intermine Pty Ltd provides enterprise-wide storage resource management solutions that empower IT administrators to effectively manage file growth by visualizing opportunities for space acquisition and effective file movement for increased company-wide efficiencies, reduced day-to-day input on the part of data managers, and overall cost savings. Intermine's products are used by Global Fortune 1000 companies with installations in the U.S., Europe and South-East Asia.
Queenland Health
FileCensus is the most scalable, cross-platform and efficient Storage Resource Management solution for business data on the market today. It enables organizations to manage their storage assets - more efficiently, with less effort.
With storage requirements increasing by more than 20 percent each month, Brisbane's Princess Alexandra Hospital continually required increasing investment in the secure storage of data that may or may not have been useful or valuable. With 3000 users across the Princess Alexandra Hospital, Queensland Health's information technology managers were faced with 600 GB of unidentified data. "We simply did not know what that huge amount of data was comprised of," explains systems integration officer Michael McMillan. "It was a significant problem for our system administration, as we did not know whether we should control the growth, or even whether we could control it."
"FileCensus has enabled us to stabilize that growth rate, with a demonstrated ROI from reduced hardware and operational costs after just five months use," said Michael McMillan. Now system administrators at the hospital can easily identify data. FileCensus's advanced customized reporting capabilities deliver a thorough understanding of stored information. As well as simplifying storage network clean-up, FileCensus informs Queensland Health's capacity planning. It will also enable the internal storage chargeback system soon to be implemented.
FileCensus empowers Queensland Health to utilize existing hardware resources at the Princess Alexandra Hospital more efficiently. It helps prevent costly upgrade cycles, improving the efficiency of IT individuals and teams. The Princess Alexandra Hospital employs FileCensus to control storage needs for over 3000 users and cover every division in the hospital. The system enables data identification across enterprise and helps gain an understanding of file types by department. It enables a chargeback system to users, functions on Windows, HP-UX, Linux and Netware, and manages SAN storage resources.
"FileCensus ensures our data storage is managed efficiently - with the right data stored in the correct locations, in the most economical way," said Michael McMillan. "It gives us a clear understanding of the requirements to implement and manage an effective data management strategy across the entire hospital."
Intermine is a software development company that aims to empower and ease the workload of data storage administrators and managers. Established in 1999, Intermine's products have a proven track record with installations in the US, Europe and South-East Asia and customers including EDS, McDonalds, Schering Plough, Novell, MLC, Time Warner, ABN AMRO, Zurich and Macquarie Bank.
Leeds City Council
FileCensus is the most scalable, cross-platform and efficient Storage Resource Management solution for business data on the market today. It enables organizations to manage their storage assets - more efficiently, with less effort.
With 3.0TB of unstructured file data scattered over 120 servers to be rationalised into new a cluster, Leeds City Council's Data Delivery team had no understanding of what the data consisted of, and more importantly, what its value to the Council's operations was. "The problem was not simply, 'what is the data?', but also 'who owns it, where is it and where ought it to be?'. We needed to design a Trustee Data Map prior to migration to show us the various paths, permissions and access patterns for over 17.5 million files," said Terry Booth, team leader.
FileCensus gives Leeds City Council the power to take stock of unstructured data throughout its storage and server infrastructure, allowing unparalleled reporting and data management. Leeds City Council employs FileCensus to control storage needs for over 10,000 users and enable data identification across the enterprise. The system helps remove unwanted files from the storage system and understand patterns of storage usage by department. It functions on Windows servers and helps manage storage on an HP SAN system.
"Intermine FileCensus afforded us a top down, deep insight into data distributed across this complex environment," said Booth. This process of data analysis allowed the Data Delivery team to accurately specify and plan for future use of their major hardware investment, a HP SAN system, avoiding costly over (or worse, under) subscription to storage hardware resources.
"Our storage use had been almost doubling each year, yet FileCensus told us that 13 per cent of our files hadn't been touched in over a year," said Booth. Legal and regulatory compliance for unstructured data was weighing heavily upon the Council, and the ever present need to squeeze more from limited data storage budgets made capacity recovery and planning a key issue. In the future, there is the ability for Council departments to be charged for the storage they use - this 'chargeback' can be easily and flexibly deployed with FileCensus's ability to pinpoint and limit the reporting produced.
FileCensus has already delivered Leeds City Council significant savings, and its powerful reporting engine, providing detailed and intuitive reports overnight, is providing Council with ongoing benefits including the foundation for a new proactive storage policy.
Intermine Pty Ltd provides enterprise-wide storage resource management solutions that empower IT administrators to effectively manage file growth by visualizing opportunities for space acquisition and effective file movement for increased company-wide efficiencies, reduced day-to-day input on the part of data managers, and overall cost savings. Intermine's products are used by Global Fortune 1000 companies with installations in the U.S., Europe and South-East Asia.