Case Study

LPR Construction provides structural steel erection services and industrial construction services on construction projects throughout the United States. The company was established in 1979 in Loveland, Colorado, and has grown to be a leader in its industry. Successfully delivering multiple, high profile projects that include Coors Field, home to the Colorado Rockies, the Miami Heat Arena and the Denver Art Museum, LPR is recognized as a nationwide pioneer in the large-scale construction industry. Imation Systems recently partnered with LPR Construction to address its storage requirements in the face of some significant data storage challenges.

The SituationThad Lutgens, IT Director for LPR Construction, is relied upon for IT infrastructure recommendations and aligning the needs of the company with its IT strategy. With over 150 geographically dispersed partner ecosystem users, ensuring constant access to data retained from multiple sources is a key priority. LPR Construction relies on document management and enterprise content management solutions to make its operations more efficient, saving time, money and storage capacity space. The Imation InfiniVault Active Archive Storage Appliance is designed to effectively manage the retention of information for extended periods, whether the need arises from compliance or governance policies, data growth that requires a scalable repository, or mounting costs associated with other data management systems.

The Challenge LPR Construction, like many companies, was experiencing significant information growth. As the company began moving towards a paperless environment, it saw a dramatic increase in scanned images and rich media from partners and customers. LPR Construction relied on a primary storage system from NetApp and used EMC DiskXtender to manage the movement of data from the image servers to the NetApp storage system. As the amount of scanned images continued to increase it was faced with the impending need to add to the NetApp storage system and spend more money on capacity-based licensing for EMC DiskXtender. “It was getting very expensive. The more data you started using, the more expense we ran into every year,” explained Lutgens.

LPR Construction Tames Data Growth, Storage Capacity Costs with Imation InfiniVault™ Active Archive Storage Appliance

AT-A-GLANCE

Industry:Construction

Application: Data Retention and Backup Software

EMC DiskXtender

Software: Imation InfiniVault Model 5

Benefits Realized:Cost-effective storage and data archive of digital information; faster backups; more reliable restores.

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. (03.05.12)

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LPR Construction historically used an optical system as a storage tier for long-term retention of information and began to see an increase in the maintenance requirements needed to support the aging system. The increased maintenance requirements and mounting storage capacity demands prompted the search for a more efficient long-term data storage system.

The SolutionLPR Construction originally considered adding more storage to the NetApp array. While generally pleased with the functionality of the NetApp system, the company questioned whether there were other options capable of providing a more cost-effective storage solution for the long-term retention of data. A cost analysis that included the addition of another shelf to the NetApp array concluded that the added flexibility of the Imation InfiniVault provided a better solution.

By utilizing the removability of the RDX disk drives, LPR maintains multiple copies of its data—both online and offline. The company is also able to expand the Imation system in a very granular manner to take advantage of the InfiniVault’s capability for limitless growth capacity, simply by adding RDX drives one at a time. “It has been absolutely solid, no problems at all—it’s made life much easier,” says Lutgens.

LPR Construction uses the Imation InfiniVault for both its long-term data archive of scanned images and digital files and as a backup solution for IT applications. With an SQL database as the backbone of its image management, the company uses the Imation InfiniVault as a disk-based backup target, realizing faster backups, and more reliable restores.

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

“ Other storage systems were getting very expensive. The more data you started using, the more expense we ran into every year.

”—Thad Lutgens

IT Director, LPR Construction