On the leading edge

CNL is now replicating about 12TB of data daily to Atlanta, where it's stored on a NetApp NearStore R200 array, a near-line storage system based on ATA disk drives.

An encryption device was added to the CNL storage architecture about two months ago with the installation of a DataFort appliance from Redwood City, Calif.-based Decru Inc. in its Orlando data center. The appliance sits between CNL's NetApp array and a new linear tape library from Overland Storage Inc., Schwalbe said.

Schwalbe said that a 5% to 10% performance drop in CNL backups after encryption was added to the process is offset by the technology's ability to keep CNL from becoming "the next Citigroup," referring to Citigroup Inc.'s loss last June of data tapes containing information from the accounts of about 3.9 million customers.

John Webster, a storage analyst at Data Mobility Group LLC in Londonderry, New Hampshire, said CNL's all-in-one storage architecture is leading-edge but is also quickly being adopted by financial services providers because it offers a relatively inexpensive, centralized and easily managed infrastructure.