Keio University Selects Zadara Hybrid Cloud Storage to Address Its DR and Cost Challenges

Zadara Storage, the provider of enterprise-class storage-as-a-service (STaaS) today announced that Keio University has selected the Zadara VPSA storage array to provide file services to their over 2,000 member university staff. By working with Zadara’s partner CDC, Keio University is able to upgrade their aging IT infrastructure to address immediate disaster recovery and cost challenges, and also position themselves for future growth.

Zadara’s partner CDC, is a leading provider of enterprise storage solutions. With over 30 years of experience, the company focuses on providing industry-leading solutions to solve key customer challenges. By focusing on both short- and long-term requirements, CDC is able to architect solutions that address both immediate challenges, but also provide the scalability and flexibility customers need to enable growth and long-term success.

Keio University is located in Minato-ku, Tokyo. Like most higher education institutions, they face demanding storage requirements. At the same time, they must deal with limited budgets, limited resources, as well as peaks and valleys in capacity and performance requirements – depending on whether classes are in session or on break. Keio University also needed to deploy a disaster recovery architecture that would protect them from a variety of unexpected disasters. To address these challenges, Keio turned to Zadara’s partner CDC to architect a solution using industry-leading cloud-based technology that would solve not only their current challenges, but support their capacity, performance and DR needs for many years to come.

After considering a variety of storage offerings from industry leaders such as NetApp and Dell, Keio University chose the Zadara VPSA storage array to support their file server applications. By replacing their existing storage in Mita (Tokyo) and Hiyoshi (Kanagawa), Japan with centralized Zadara VPSA storage at the CDC data center, they significantly reduced their capital, operating and maintenance expenses. Keio University selected a hybrid cloud architecture combining on-premise Zadara VPSA storage as well as a DRaaS remote mirror to Zadara VPSA storage at the CDC/Equinix data center in Tokyo.

"Our storage challenges were significant. Our prior storage was old and needed to be replaced and we also need to architect a remote mirror solution to protect us from a variety of potential disasters," said Yasuki Kaneko, chief administrator of IT Center for Keio University. "CDC worked closely with us to leverage the benefits of the Zadara Storage VPSA, and we found it aligned very well with our requirements. We now have a cost-effective hybrid solution that leverages key technologies to securely mirror our data to the CDC data center in Tokyo. We are well protected and have a scalable solution to support future growth."