Business Issues
AOK Baden-Wuerttemberg introduced the first StorageTek. disk solutions in 2001. At that time the IT personnel of AOK Baden-Wuerttemberg were faced with a new challenge. Until then, the entire IT structure had been divided into 13 production areas that could be processed in parallel. These 13 production areas were to be consolidated into a master data file for better customer coverage. This project was no problem for the very modern large Z-series computers. The existing storage components were another matter because the capacity - and especially the performance - had not increased to be able to handle a consolidated data file. Performing the nightly batch processing could not be assured.

Solutions
In 2001 AOK Baden-Wuerttemberg decided in favor of eight StorageTek SVA 9500 virtual disk systems with a total storage capacity of 15 terabytes. A decisive advantage of the StorageTek disk arrays was the use of StorageTek Virtual SnapShot to copy large amounts of data to file level in a few seconds. This made it was possible to produce backup copies in a very short time.

The data processing system of AOK Baden-Wuerttemberg was rebuilt at the beginning 2002. The StorageTek V2X virtual disk array, as compared with the SVA disk systems, has additional capacity, performance and, above all, an essentially higher number of addresses. AOK Baden-Wuerttemberg ordered four V2X disk systems with about 20 terabytes of storage volume. The disk arrays immediately proved that the batch processing could be significantly shortened again, and faster and better data distribution could be achieved by the higher performance and Virtual SnapShot.

AOK Baden-Wuerttemberg most recently installed the new StorageTek T9840B Ficon tape drives to assist in their disaster recovery activities and to improve the I/O capability of their mainframe systems.

Financial Benefits
The StorageTek solution is a digitized storage system that offers the largest capacity and lowest cost in the industry. Because multiple users can have simultaneous access to the same data file, duplication of multiple copies needed in an analogoperation is eliminated, thus greatly reducing the cost of content duplication. In addition, due to the centralizedmanagement and resource sharing, CCTV can supportmore channels and regions with fewer resources.

More reliable batch processing
"StorageTek Virtual SnapShot brought us many advantages in batch processing. We process not only our data in a time window. We make up to six backup copies at the same time in the same period. These backup copies are our guarantee of smooth and, above all, timely processing of our batches. Further copies are produced analogously for test data files. All of this is an enormous security advantage for our data processing," said Hubertus Weilandt, project manager at AOK Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Optimized operating system functions
In addition to the decisive advantages of StorageTek Virtual SnapShot in the nightly processing, AOK Baden- Wuerttemberg also uses the tool for maintenance work on the operating system level.