CWF Deploys Acopia

LOWELL, Mass. -- Acopia NetworksR, Inc., the leader in high-performance intelligent file virtualization, today announced that The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the world's largest living history museum, has chosen to deploy Acopia ARX systems to support its data tiering, load balancing, and data replication for disaster recovery (DR) efforts.

Initially, the ARX systems, deployed in conjunction with Acopia channel partner Dataline, leveraged Acopia's flexible file placement policies to transparently migrate data across its heterogeneous network-attached storage(NAS) environment. It then established information lifecycle management(ILM) policies to automate the movement of data -- primarily media files used in conjunction with its tourism promotional activities and PBS television program production -- across multiple storage tiers to lower storage costs, improve performance, and free-up space in its Quota Trees(Qtrees) which had reached full capacity and were at risk for denying writes and/or producing other errors.

"Colonial Williamsburg recognized some time ago that it would soon reach the maximum capacity allowable for its existing NAS assets. It needed a solution that would optimize existing resources, without requiring a significant capital expenditure in new storage capacity," said Nigel Buttery, president of Dataline, one of the nation's leading information technology consulting services firms serving both the government and commercial sectors. "We recommended the Acopia ARX because of its unique ability to utilize intelligent load balancing policies to automate distribution of application workload across Colonial Williamsburg's existing NAS resources - effectively eliminating any potential 'hot spots' and freeing up valuable disk space."

"We regard Dataline as a trusted extension of our own internal IT department, and therefore seriously considered and vigilantly evaluated the Acopia technology when it was recommended to us," said Sean Maisey, manager, IT operations and engineering, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. "The Acopia solution has delivered exactly as Dataline assured us it would. In addition to its key benefits of data tiering and load balancing, Acopia's flexible and easy to use replication policies provide the data protection and disaster recovery capabilities we required."

"We are delighted to have met the rigorous demands of both Dataline and Colonial Williamsburg. Dataline is widely recognized and trusted by both government and corporate businesses, and we value their partnership," said Kirby Wadsworth, senior vice president of marketing and business development, Acopia Networks. "Colonial Williamsburg is instantly recognized around the world, having hosted more than 100 million visitors since its inception in 1932. Acopia is indeed proud to assist as Colonial Williamsburg strives to accomplish its mission of ensuring that the future may learn from the past."Acopia Networks Inc.