Department of Personnel uses Storage Area Network (SAN) to store and manage personnel and payroll dataFebruary 2006

Department of Personnel uses Storage Area Network (SAN) to store and manage personnel and payroll data

The Department of Personnel (DOP) is currently implementing the State of Washington's Human Resource Management System (HRMS), a new personnel and payroll computer system that will replace the state's existing 30-year old system.

HRMS requires managing, maintaining and storing large amounts of personnel and payroll data - five terabytes and growing. DOP was looking for an expandable, secure system to store information from multiple databases.

"We didn't have the right resources to build our own internal, high-speed storage area network," says Steve Ryser, DOP HRMS/SAP Basis Support Manager. "To meet our business needs, we decided to use the DIS SAN Service. DIS provides top-of-the-line equipment, vendors and highly-trained staff. Using DIS takes the worry out of hiring and training staff to become experts in this area."

The Department of Information Services (DIS) SAN Service helps agencies manage and store eight gigabytes or more of data using a specialized, high-speed network that connects servers and storage devices. Typical SAN users are managers or owners of databases, IT applications, media files, medical records, server farms, imaging files, and geographic information system data.

The DIS SAN Service allows agencies to:

• increase storage capacity on demand.
• manage and store data with reliability and flexibility.
• share data between multiple servers and applications.
• take advantage of a secure, 24-hour monitored service.
• store data separate from servers for disaster recovery purposes.
• benefit from non-disruptive backups and upgrades.
• release agency system administrators to do other work.

"SAN is a good choice for DOP," says Valerie Robinson, DIS Enterprise Storage Management Manager. "In addition to meeting the data sharing requirements, they can replace their server hardware without backing up or restoring any of the data stored in the SAN."

How agencies can take advantage of SAN
At this time, to use the SAN Service, agencies must be a customer of DIS Server Hosting Services, such as Servers á la Carte or Dedicated Server Hosting. In addition, agencies will need a vendor certified Host Bus Adapter (HBA) card. Agencies can contact the DIS Enterprise Storage Management group to coordinate the installation of the card into the server. The HBA card, which is a translation device, allows the server to physically connect to DIS for agency access to the storage arrays.

To purchase SAN services, agencies must enter into a service level agreement with DIS. First-time DIS customers will need to establish a customer service agreement (CSA). To determine if your organization has a CSA with DIS, visit the DIS Web site.

For more information about the DIS SAN Service and pricing, contact Valerie Robinson, Enterprise Storage Management Manager at 360-902-3186 or via e-mail at valerier@dis.wa.gov.