ESQUIMALT - The Township of Esquimalt has recently implemented an innovative data storage solution with Synetic Inc., one of Canada's leading data storage hardware distributors and manufacturers.
Late in 2004, Esquimalt was faced with the dual challenge of increasing their data storage capacity tenfold and setting up an offsite storage facility in order to meet the disaster recovery requirements of Esquimalt's Emergency Plan. They turned to local technology solutions provider Novus Technology Solutions who conducted a detailed needs analysis with the Municipality.
"We conducted a detailed review of existing products available in the market from major data storage solutions providers and calculated that Esquimalt were looking at a total spend of around $150,000 to both meet their objectives and to provide a platform for the future," says Ray Larson, Operations Manager for Novus Inc. "We did not consider this to be an acceptable cost, given the Municipal budget. We had, however, been working with Synetic Inc. on similar projects for other Municipal clients and, after carefully weighing the options, it was clear that Synetic would be best able to provide the appropriate solution to fit within Esquimalt's budget."
"The timing was perfect for both us and Esquimalt as we had completed two years of development work on our iSCSI product and were ready to launch in the market," says Graham Howe, Sales and Marketing Manager for Synetic Inc. "We knew immediately that we could meet their needs and provide a high quality remote backup solution for less than a third of the price of existing solutions from other providers. This meant that we would save them around $100,000."
Esquimalt now has over 2 terabytes of storage capacity in their main Municipal Hall which is mirrored to their confidential remote back-up location. This gives them a solid platform for their continued growth combined with an offsite facility which will enable the Municipality to function as normal in the event of a disaster at the Municipal Hall.
"It is fair to say that, without this solution, we could not have met our requirements without spending a large amount of taxpayer money," says Brenda Warner, Director of Corporate Services for the Town of Esquimalt. "We were also pleased to be able to work with a local company that has such a high quality global client base. Synetic have certainly delivered a world class solution within our budget."
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