Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen University is a public research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The main campus covers 620 acres in the northwestern part of the city of Aachen, and the university has facilities in three additional locations.
One of 42 universities in the North Rhine-Westphalia state, RWTH Aachen is the largest technical university in Germany. More than 47,000 students are enrolled in 144 programs of study. It is recognized as one the ten German Universities of Excellence and has a strong focus on engineering.
The state of NRW decided to improve the data protection and storage systems for a consortium of 29 of its universities. At the time, nearly all the state universities operated their own local backup service, but backups were scheduled, and restoration wasn’t fully reliable, especially in the event of a catastrophe. The existing systems were ill-equipped to handle the highly specialized user systems and increased demand for the service.
The state wanted to consolidate data protection in six large university data centers. RWTH Aachen University took the lead on the project and partnered with Hitachi Vantara. The team wanted to build a backup service and storage system that had the capacity and functionality seen in the Hitachi Content Platform. They would need to create a new infrastructure to support it.
A Model Project: Consolidated Data Backup
The team created an operating model that established a cross-university data backup system for all consortium universities. It enabled the team to develop the technical, organizational, and process-related boundary conditions and requirements for the universities. The storage systems were set up geo-redundantly and distributed locally.
The result is Datensicherung.nrw, which provides backup, restoration, and data protection. It relies on the storage layer, which guarantees the persistence and availability of all stored data. Using Hitachi Data Protection Suite, powered by Commvault, and HCP object storage, the data is protected throughout the ecosystem.
The team took a self-service approach to backups, allowing each university to transport data to the main data center on their own schedule. Backup and restoration now can take place at any time, eliminating the need for specific backup windows and improving network availability. Restoration requests are accommodated quickly, increasing user satisfaction.
During the project, one partner university faced a data emergency. The RWTH team was able to onboard that university in only a couple days, enabling users to access the restored data quickly. The data protection solution has been a success, says Thomas Eifert, CTO of RWTH Aachen University. Being able to provide data backup services to other universities boosted the reputation of RWTH Aachen and strengthened data protection.
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Image Credit: Hitachi Vantara/RWTH Aachen University