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Metropolitan Museum of Art Selects Storage Software to Support Virtual Art Collection

Met to manage digital images more easily

NEW YORK -- The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) has implemented HP storage software for business continuity and, eventually, to catalogue its entire collection digitally.

The software, OpenView Continuous Access Storage Appliance (CASA), will allow the Met to optimize its storage resources and increase usable storage by 30 percent by employing virtualization to enable heterogeneous data services.

The Met's Web site features numerous digital profiles and pictures of objects in its collection. Storage for the site is managed by virtualization software on an earlier generation of CASA, which will soon be working with a second, recently purchased version for local and remote mirroring to ensure 24/7 availability.

Overall, the Met currently manages 3.3 terabytes of data in a storage area network. The software has increased the museum's usable storage by a full terabyte. Every byte counts, as a digital version of a typical painting takes up anywhere from 25 megabytes to 125 megabytes of storage and the museum sees no slowdown in demand.

The software offers data services such as data migration, synchronous and asynchronous mirroring, and point-in-time images ("snap copies"). The software increases data availability and, through simplified management, maximizes utilization of storage assets while reducing application downtime.

Miriam Jones is a former chief copy editor of Government Technology, Governing, Public CIO and Emergency Management magazines.