Girl Scouts of the USA Merits Overland's Integrated Deduplicating VTL, Disk-Based Backup and Tape-Based Solutions for Ideal Mix of Tiered Data Protection Solutions

Overland Storage, Inc. today unveiled the REO(R) 9500D deduplicating VTL appliance that extends the company's evolving tiered data protection strategy by adding data deduplication for easier access, faster restores and longer-term, near-line retention of backup data. The new REO 9500D leverages Overland's proven REO SERIES(R) disk-based VTL platform and enterprise-class deduplicating software powered by Diligent(TM) Technologies to retain typically up to 25 times more data on disk.

The combination of Overland's REO disk-based VTL and Diligent's ProtecTIER(TM) deduplicating solution provides an all-in-one appliance that can be integrated seamlessly into existing backup environments. Ideally suited for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and distributed organizations, the REO 9500D includes an easy-to-use configuration wizard to streamline deployments in less than an hour, without requiring any modifications to application or backup servers.

The robust 9500D augments the market momentum of Overland's REO VTLs while complementing the company's ARCvault(TM), NEO SERIES(R) and ULTAMUS(TM) RAID products to meet a wide range of data protection requirements. To date, more than 5,000 REOs have been deployed worldwide, representing more than 25 petabytes of vital data. When coupled with Diligent's HyperFactor(TM), highly efficient in-line data deduplicating technology that is embedded in ProtecTIER, this latest REO model can store months of data on disk to optimize storage capacity while dramatically lowering data protection costs. The REO 9500D also features advanced functionality, including:

- Up to 187 TBs of usable capacity in a 5u chassis;

- Dual 4 Gb/second Fibre Channel host connectivity;

- User-definable VTL with up to 12 library partitions, 64 virtual tapedrives and 3,000 virtual cartridges;

- Quad hot-swap power supplies; and

- A compact, environmentally friendly form factor that conserves power, cooling and rack space.

According to Vern LoForti, president and CEO of Overland Storage, the REO 9500D is the latest milestone in the company's tiered data protection strategy, which focuses on helping customers determine the most appropriate combination of disk- and tape-based appliances to solve their data protection problems, depending on performance requirements, business continuity objectives and desired cost per terabyte. "Our goal is to offer our customers the broadest and most capable portfolio of data protection appliances available from any single company," he says. We understand that one size does not fit all, so Overland offers customizable solutions that solve specific problems based on defined criteria. The new REO 9500D adds yet another level of protection for customers seeking simplified, affordable long-term data retention on disk. We have a full roadmap of products to further our overarching goal of adding best-of-class data protection tools that reduce backup windows, improve recovery speeds and simplify both short- and long-term data retention requirements."

For Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA), an influx of publishing and activity-related data caused storage to surge by 50 percent to 5 TBs over the past year. This dramatic increase overtaxed the organization's existing tape-based data protection system, which led to an evaluation of disk-to-disk-to-tape (D2D2T) solutions and ultimate deployment of Overland's REO 9000 D2D VTL appliance and NEO 2000 tape library to boost backup and recovery reliability while also reducing backup windows and accelerating restores.