A first-of-its-kind partnership with a fellow UW System campus will help keep University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee data safe, and at a cost-effective price.
In the arrangement, UWM will store 75 terabytes of data at UW-Parkside, while the Kenosha campus will store 58 terabytes in Milwaukee.
It’s important to back up data at a geographically distant place, said Chris Spadanuda, the associate director of Core Enterprise Services at UWM. If a tornado or other disaster struck, critically important data could be quickly retrieved and restored.
“It’s cost-effective insurance, is what it is,” Spadanuda said.
UWM paid $30,000 to buy the storage equipment, which is designed to have a five-year lifespan, and expects minimal operating costs. By comparison, one data storage company quoted a price of $242,000 per year.
The data is central to UWM’s operations, including types such as student information and financial aid, along with information from the police department and library.
“The IT architecture and infrastructure team was able to quickly and efficiently set up the backup environment with Parkside staff,” Spadanuda said. “This is an example of a low-effort project that is a quick win for both organizations.”
UW-Parkside was drawn to the project for the same reasons as UWM.
“Finding a new backup and recovery solution was critical to UW-Parkside as our existing backup infrastructure had reached its end-of-life,” said Brian Tolejano, network manager-information security officer at Parkside. “The partnership was not only an excellent opportunity but also cost effective.”
If the partnership works as well as hoped, UWM will look for additional opportunities of the same sort, Spadanuda said.
