Case Study

The Colonial Company, headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama, is a privately owned diversified holding company which invests in private and public businesses and manages operating companies involved in real estate development and insurance. Founded in 1956, Colonial Company began building homes in Montgomery with one company, Lowder Construction Company. It currently holds an investment in numerous projects throughout the Sunbelt states that include office buildings, single-and multi-family residential structures, shopping centers and malls, insurance companies, and a golf course. Over the past half century, the insurance division has grown to be one of Central Alabama’s leading full-service insurance brokerage and risk-management firms.

The SituationThe IT environment at Colonial Company is strictly a Windows domain with virtual machines (Windows 2003 servers) running Citrix Xen Servers and two Dell servers set up as NAS. The company utilized an HP SureStore Optical 220mx auto-loading optical jukebox to store its imaging data from an application that ran on an attached virtual server. According to Randy Householder, the vice president of IT, “There’s just more maintenance involved with the outdated optical jukebox—mechanical issues with the moving pieces, swapping out the tapes and having to keep everything rotated since the storage size just wasn’t that much per cartridge.” Since the company recently experienced a reduction of IT personnel, Householder needed to find a storage solution that would decrease the required maintenance for this legacy optical equipment.

The Challenge Colonial Company integrates ApplicationXtender with a Timberline accounting program to create images of accounts receivable and accounts payable information. Data images and screenshots generated by the accounting department currently drive most of the company’s data growth. Additionally, the company images everything pertaining to warranty-related work associated with its residential construction division, keeping track of all costs and contracts.

Holding Company invests in Imation InfiniVault™ Active Archive Storage Appliance to save time and money

AT-A-GLANCE

Industry:Construction

Application: Document Imaging

Optical Replacement

Software: EMC ApplicationXtender

Benefits Realized: Expandable storage platform allows for future data growth; WORM capabilities ensure data protection; reduced maintenance and licensing costs; more efficient time and budget management.

Imation Enterprises Corp., 1 Imation Way, Oakdale, MN 55128.3414 USA Ph: 651.704.4000 Fax: 651.537.4675 www.imation.com © Imation Corp. Imation, the Imation logo and InfiniVault are trademarks of Imation Corp and its affiliates. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. (03.09.12)

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Working towards the goal of a paperless environment and quicker access to data, Colonial Company was in need of a reliable data storage system that required less maintenance, less manual interaction and more automated features. The company also required a system with Write Once Read Many (WORM) and replication capabilities. By alleviating it from the CommVault solution, we don’t have to pay for it,” explained Glaser.

The SolutionCurrently, the Imation InfiniVault Active Archive Storage Appliance is attached to a virtual server and integrates with the imaging software, ApplicationXtender, to store all the company’s imaged data. With the InfiniVault’s WORM capabilities, data is protected and secure. Additional benefits of the InfiniVault include the ability to set data retention periods and automatically delete the data once its lifespan has been reached. Once it has been removed, the system will also reclaim that storage space for future use.

With the InfiniVault, Colonial Company found that the need for manual interaction and maintenance has been significantly reduced, saving the company time and money. “We were able to get rid of some product licensing and maintenance fees that we had to pay for annually, which saved us money,” explains Householder. “The Imation InfiniVault is definitely a huge advantage as far as the maintenance goes—you just set it up, it does its job and you forget about it.”

The InfiniVault’s ability for near infinite expansion via the RDX disks means that Colonial Company now has a storage system capable of efficiently handling the company’s data storage needs. “We have plenty of storage space for future growth. I think the InfiniVault is going to last for quite a while before we have to make any additions to it,” says Householder.

Householder has no reservations recommending the Imation InfiniVault to others. “It is a reliable product that once you set it to your needs you don’t have to worry about it; it does its job and it makes the job that much easier.”

Questions? Contact us at:Phone: 651-704-7777Website: www.scalablestorage.com

“ We were able to get rid of some product licensing and maintenance fees that we had to pay for annually, which saved us money. ”—Randy Householder

Vice President of IT, Colonial Company