SAN Plugs Into Publishing

Ask storage integrators what vertical markets they're in, and many will insist that they are horizontal. "Everyone needs storage," they say. However, being an expert on the storage needs of the publishing vertical market pays off for Graphic Systems International (GSI).

In 1995, North American Systems International (Eagan, MN), a provider of mid-range computer products, spun off GSI to play in the publishing vertical market. A part of the publishing market that is becoming increasingly digital is prepress. Prepress is the business of preparing camera-ready materials for printing. The process includes typesetting, page layout, and proofreading.

In its first five years, GSI became the $9 million child of a $30 million company. It originally provided automation solutions to prepress workflow operations. As the storage needs of its customers grew, GSI began to explore the possibilities of SANs (storage area networks) in the publishing industry. Recently, GSI has brought digital printing files and images to Web browsers and users.

"SAN is a good solution for multi-server environments that use one shared storage, like publishing environments," said John Bettenburg, GSI's division manager. "Our sole focus has been to stay on the server, data storage, and data management side of this industry. We anticipated that all digital assets would have to be available to a SAN network. So, we fine-tuned our solutions to make smooth transitions possible from existing workflows to SAN environments."

SAN For Publishing Environments Profits VARs
The goal for SAN solutions is to make data available - fast - to everyone who needs it and is authorized to access it. "Less than 50% of the high-end digital printing industry is working with Web-ready files," Bettenburg said. This translates into more opportunity for GSI and contributes to its 25% growth rate. Proving a quick turnaround for ROI (return on investment) makes selling solutions easier for VARs like GSI. "No other industry has a faster ROI than the digital prepress environment," noted Bettenburg. "ROI is measured as the amount of increase in productivity in the same environment with new application software and network servers. In prepress, it's easy to make comparisons between the current rate of output files and the rate in the new environment."

How Is A SAN For Publishing Environments Different From Other Industries' SANs?
Bettenburg explained why the prepress industry is a challenge when it comes to configuring SAN. "Digital prepress production houses have been acquiring each other at a fast pace," he said. "Groups in the industry have 12 to 24 sites all under one name. It's common for us to work with large groups in multiple locations. Multiple locations have multiple operating systems, or what's called a heterogeneous environment."

SAN for corporate America is usually easier to connect because it mostly uses IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Sun, according to Bettenburg. Most IS (information systems) managers buy into a certain style of OS (operating system) and stick with it. A SAN for them is simple because there's one OS. They have multiple servers, but usually they are all compatible. "IS managers can hook RAID (redundant array of independent disks) storage up to a Fibre Channel switch, and everybody speaks the same language," he said.

"In the printing industry, SAN is not that simple," advised Bettenburg. "If you're working in a large printing or publishing environment, you'll have multiple servers that use Mac. You can't settle for a low-end Mac server. You need something like UNIX on a Sun or SGI (Silicon Graphics, Inc.) server. Another server at the same location might be an IBM RS6000, which uses another UNIX OS. Sometimes you have legacy workstations in your network that might be designed for creation-type software. This software might run on Vector-based workflow that works on SGI."

Bettenburg said that in publishing, it's common to have four different operating systems in one environment. What makes it difficult is that the storage in RAID must have an interpreter. The data has to be stored as metadata (a description of the data). Metadata has to be translated into the OS of the hardware requesting it. Each of the servers might want to share the same files. Translation software from companies like Mercury allows SAN storage to connect to multiple operating systems that want to share files.

"When we install a SAN, we're creating a new network in the customer's building," explained Bettenburg. "It's a Fibre Channel network. We install Fibre Channel, and then we put a Fibre Channel HBA (host bus adapter) onto each of these servers, so they can communicate with the storage."

Bringing Archived Images To The Web
After the SAN is installed, and all the servers can access the same storage, what then? Bettenburg indicated that the biggest movement happening in the market is the distribution of files over the Web. GSI capitalizes on solutions for hosting customers' images and helping customers provide access to those files over the Internet.

GSI's Web server, Lightning Server Solution, connects storage to the outside world. "We sell a software called WebNative," said Bettenburg. "WebNative can access both live data on the RAID or archived data on tape stackers and DVD jukeboxes. With a password, users can access this data over the Web. If your sales force is out there with laptops, they can plug in and use Netscape to access the company's SAN storage."

GSI has found its niche in a vertical market. When the needs of the publishing market change, so does GSI. Rather than trying to be all storage to all customers, it focuses on the publishing industry. Everyone needs storage. Yes, that's true. But, as you can see, the storage needs of some industries, like publishing, call for specialized configurations.

Questions about this article? E-mail the author at AnnD@corrypub.com.