Storing More Mortgages In Less Space
As the amount of data grows, reseller Inacom is the source for a Hewlett-Packard tape library to provide Republic Mortgage Insurance Company with more capacity and faster backup. Republic Mortgage Insurance Company (RMIC) (Winston-Salem, NC), a 550-employee title company, depends on sound data to decide whether it should insure a mortgage. It needs to have an efficient backup system running. RMIC underwrites mortgage insurance and provides related services from 24 regional sites throughout the United States. With sophisticated technology products, customers can expedite the underwriting process through electronic loan submissions and 24-hour-a-day, online access to RMIC-insured loans. Specially designed rate programs help lenders simplify loan originations.
Federal And Legal Requirements Make Storage A Big Issue For Mortgage Insurance Companies
The home office and regional sites generate about 240 GB of data on a complete weekly backup. Differential backups are done nightly. Tapes are picked up and dropped off each day, and off-site storage is contracted through a records management warehouse. The insurance industry's legal requirements for data storage and a federally mandated disaster-recovery plan added to the challenge of managing RMIC's data. Recalling the pre-installation situation, Bodey Fields, network engineer at RMIC said, "The amount of tapes we had was getting unmanageable.
"When lenders buy mortgage insurance from us, it's all data-driven," added Fields. "When there's a claim, the information is stored online. The claims department can bring up virtually every type of business information on its PCs. We need to have uptime close to 100%, so we can give customers answers while they're on the phone," stressed Fields.
RMIC's 28-person IT (information technology) team manages 95 Hewlett-Packard (HP) NetServers that run Windows NT through a TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol) network connection. RMIC has a development/test environment where it tests new insurance management tools before they are placed in the production environment. "We'll have a database in development/test, and a duplicate one in production," said Fields. "We have to manage double the amount of data."
It took about three months to decide what backup system would fit the mortgage company's needs. In the end, the total system, an HP server, an HP DLT library, and Veritas software, cost approximately $35,000. RMIC purchased the equipment through Inacom's Greensboro, NC reseller location. The servers are now backed up with an HP SureStore DLT Library 7215 running Seagate Backup Exec v. 7.1. The headquarters staff in Winston-Salem, NC manages the backup for all regional sites. "We don't have technical people in the regional offices. I don't want the people there burdened with changing tapes," commented Fields.
Less Backup Time And Fewer Tapes Simplify The Business Day
"Now, with the reduced number of tapes, off-site storage is simplified. We went from 15 tapes taking 12 to 15 hours a day to manage — which interfered with the business day — down to only four tapes in a 10-hour window," said Fields. "The HP SureStore DLT library's ability to quickly store a huge amount of data on a minimum number of tapes has helped me manage my backup. If data is not backed up and it's needed, we lose money," said Fields. "Reliability of the DLTtapes has definitely improved our productivity and customer service and has reduced downtime."
Future plans for RMIC include adding an additional tape library to handle increasing amounts of data. Fields said that he is looking at an archival system and is considering a SAN (storage area network), possibly within the next six months.
Ann DeDad