Publisher ramps up for big data growth

Global publisher John Wiley & Sons has deployed a solution from EMC Isilon  to manage its big data. The deployment includes EMC Isilon scale-out network attached storage and VMWare server virtualization tools, which will transform Wiley’s IT infrastructure, streamlining data access while reducing energy consumption, according to EMC. Over the past two years, Wiley’s Indianapolis operation has grown from 15 to 150 terabytes of data, most of it attributed to newly created interactive, audio and video content. Wiley wanted to ensure that its data was secure and immediately accessible around the clock.

James Sample, director of WAN performance & reliability at Wiley, says, “Our IT department was constantly configuring LUNs [logical unit numbers], forcing one member of the team to focus exclusively on storage administration. Having deployed EMC Isilon, we no longer have to worry about where and how to store and manage our digital files. We can focus on producing and delivering valuable, interactive content for and to our customers. It was the only option that didn't force us to compromise on performance, scalability or ease of use as we scale to petabytes and as nodes grow in capacity. We've been here for over 200 years, so we are used to thinking long-term.”

EMC cites the following customer benefits:

• Power savings--reduced power usage in the data center over 60 percent while tripling the number of virtual servers.
• Cost savings--saved more than $100,000 by leveraging Isilon SnapShotIQ and replication capabilities to replace traditional backup.
• Faster data access--added multiple points of access to the data, increasing interaction speed between LUNs and virtual machines fourfold.