Recognized in Category of "Innovation and Promise" for its Pioneering Deployment of Intelligent File Storage Virtualization
Lowell, MA - March 28, 2007 - Acopia Networks®, Inc., the leader in high-performance intelligent file virtualization, today announced that its customer The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the world's largest living history museum, has been named a finalist for Storage Networking World's "Best Practices in Storage" Awards Program, in the category of "Innovation and Promise." The twice annual awards program identifies and acknowledges excellence among users of storage technology.
Finalists will be honored at the Storage Networking World conference during a Gala Evening and Awards Ceremony held on April 18, 2007, and will also be recognized on the event Website and in an event press release.
"The organizations and professionals selected to be finalists in Storage Networking World's 2007 'Best Practices in Storage' Awards Program have demonstrated to be at the forefront of managing today's storage technology," said Ron Milton, executive vice president, Computerworld.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation nomination detailed its recent deployment of a file storage virtualization solution, featuring clustered Acopia ARX systems, to support its data tiering, load balancing, and data replication for disaster recovery (DR) efforts. Initially, the Foundation 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.
"It is indeed a great honor to have been nominated and now recognized for our recent file storage virtualization implementation," said Sean Maisey, manager, IT Operations and Engineering, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. "By implementing the Acopia file storage virtualization solution, we were able to free-up significant capacity on our Tier 1 NAS filers, as well as implement automated ILM policies to ensure capacity always remains at an acceptable level. In fact, we have now been able to eliminate the need for new storage capacity, which we had estimated at $300,000 - $400,000."
Maisey continued, "Bottom line, the ROI was immediate and measurable - but perhaps just as important, the solution has granted us freedom of choice, in that we're not locked into any one vendor. While we are happy with our NAS vendor today, if tomorrow their technology, pricing, and/or service levels do not meet our requirements, we can easily switch to another platform."
"The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is a true 'pioneer' in every sense of the word," said Kirby Wadsworth, senior vice president of marketing and business development, Acopia Networks. "They wisely recognized that more traditional storage solutions would not meet their data tiering, load balancing, and data replication for disaster recovery requirements. They then turned to a more innovative and promising solution - file storage virtualization, featuring Acopia technology as its basis - and the results speak for themselves." He continued, "We are proud and delighted that they have been named a finalist for Storage Networking World's "Best Practices in Storage" Awards Program; and we wish them the best of luck."
Further information regarding The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation can be found at: http://www.colonialwilliamsburg.com/visit/planYourVisit/revcity/.
Further information regarding Storage Networking World, Spring 2007, can be found at: www.snwusa.com.
About Computerworld
Computerworld is recognized worldwide as the premier source for news, information and opinion on the critical technology and management issues affecting senior technology professionals. Computerworld's award-winning weekly publication, Computerworld.com Web site, focused conference series and custom research, form the hub of the world's largest (58-edition) global IT media network. In the past five years alone, Computerworld has won more than 100 awards, including the 2004 and 2006 Magazine of the Year Award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors and Folio Magazine's 2006 Gold EDDIE Award for the best technology/computing magazine. Computerworld has an online audience of over 1.9 million unique monthly visitors (Omniture) and a total print audience of 1,337,000 (IntelliQuest CIMS Spring 2006). Computerworld is on the Web at www.computerworld.com.
Computerworld is a business unit of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading technology media, research and events company. A privately held company, IDG publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers, including CIO, CSO, Computerworld, GamePro, InfoWorld, Network World and PC World. The company features the largest network of technology-specific Web sites, with more than 400 around the world. IDG is also a leading producer of more than 170 computer-related events worldwide, including Storage Networking World®, Premier 100®, LinuxWorld Conference & Expo®, Macworld Conference & Expo, DEMO® and IDC Directions. IDC provides global market research and advice through offices in 50 countries. Company information is available at http://www.idg.com.
About Acopia Networks
Acopia Networks is the leader in high-performance, intelligent file virtualization. Solutions based on Acopia's FreedomFabric™ network operating system software help customers manage the growth, complexity, and cost of unstructured, globally distributed, file-based information. By providing automatic, policy-driven, data migration, tiering, load balancing, snapshots, and replication across multi-vendor storage environments, Acopia helps IT executives to reduce management overhead and accelerate business workflow. For further information about Acopia's products and services, please visit its Website at www.acopia.com, call 978-513-2900 (US) / 49-89-944-90-165 (Europe) or email info@acopia.com.
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© 2007 Acopia Networks, Inc. Acopia, Acopia Networks, ARX, and FreedomFabric are trademarks of Acopia Networks, Inc. All other brands, products, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of the companies with which they are associated.
Contact:
Nicole Gorman
Acopia Networks, Inc.
508-397-0131
ngorman@acopia.com