Genethon Secures Human Genome Scientific Data with Atempo Digital Archive

Atempo, a leading provider of cross-platform data protection and archiving solutions, announced today that Genethon has deployed Atempo Digital Archive, Atempo’s advanced file archiving platform, to optimise its storage resources.

Genethon is a biotherapy research center that was created by the French Muscular Dystrophy Association (AFM) and funded almost exclusively by donations from France's annual Telethon. Its goal is to deliver gene therapies to patients with rare diseases, with emphasis on neuromuscular diseases.

With over 200 scientists, physicians, engineers and regulatory affairs specialists, Genethon is a world-leading center for preclinical and clinical research and development in the field of gene therapy. As pioneers in the global effort to decipher the human genome, Genethon researchers have deeply and permanently changed the landscape of global research in human genetics. Their research data must be protected and archived to preserve Genethon’s scientific heritage.

With data volumes growing at 30 to 40% per year, primarily from the thousands of high resolution pictures and videos from electron microscopes and DNA sequencers, the IT department of Genethon faced lengthening backup windows, and thus began investigating file-archiving solutions to free up space on primary storage. After a study of the potential solutions available on the market, Genethon chose Atempo Digital Archive.

The IT department manages a fleet of over 250 computers and PC notebooks, about 20 Windows and Linux servers and has two storage arrays for research data, a Dell CX300 with an eight terabyte capacity and a disk array Dell EqualLogic ™ PS6000 Series with a 10 terabyte capacity. Data is backed up and stored on a Dell PowerVault tape library.

After running Atempo Meter, a free diagnostic tool, the IT department learned that over 50% of the images and other files stored on the primary storage, which is backed up on a regular basis, were not daily accessed. Using Atempo Digital Archive’s Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM) capabilities, the IT department was able to migrate this scientific data to a secondary storage array and free up 1.5 terabytes of space on the primary storage. During the migration, data files were automatically replaced by small stub files so that researchers can transparently retrieve the archived data. Since the migration, backup windows have been shortened by 40%.

"Thanks to ADA, we were able to free up more than 50% capacity on primary storage without any impact on our users. These results mean significantly improved performance on our tape-based backups, plus savings from reduced administration time and reduced tape supplies, "said Tien-Dung Le Van, IT manager for Genethon.  "In addition, Atempo Digital Archive enables us to maintain our precious scientific assets in open formats while keeping these archives accessible and retrievable by our researchers."

Genethon relied on the hardware manufacturer Dell and Atempo and their respective teams of experts. Dell France, a long standing Atempo partner, has a deep expertise with storage environments and high availability solutions from Atempo.

"Today, scientific research centers similar to Genethon face an incredible amount of data to store and preserve. Generated volumes are sometimes hundreds of gigabytes per day. Sustainability is a challenge for these organisations, the loss of data created at great expense would be an irretrievable loss of valuable scientific research,” said Richard Heitmann, vice president of marketing at Atempo. “As a leading provider of data protection and archiving solutions, Atempo continues to innovate to provide reliable and efficient software products such as Atempo Digital Archive to preserve the research heritage of these scientific organisations.”