Delorme Maps DLM Management

When Delorme Publishing Co. found its data needs dramatically outpacing its backup infrastructure, the company turned to a data life-cycle management solution from BakBone Software Inc. Data availability is critical to DeLorme, a leader in the mapping industry. The Yarmouth, Maine, companys decision to deploy BakBones NetVault backup and recovery solution has enabled it to readily access vast amounts of mapping data and achieve the fastest restores possible while keeping costs down, said Philip Pedro, DeLormes director of IT.

By transferring data from expensive primary storage, the BakBone DLM solution has enabled DeLorme to keep its primary-to-secondary storage ratio close to 1-to-10—resulting in significant cost savings.

"We have had estimates that we will probably quadruple the amount of storage we have by the end of this year," Pedro said. "With these huge storage demands placed on us, we needed a solution that could grow and handle our needs without any trouble."

DeLorme, which relies on DLM to free high-speed storage resources while keeping reference data available, is not alone in its desire to manage information through the course of its life span. Research company Gartner Inc., of Stamford, Conn., estimates that the average organization doubles its storage needs every 18 to 24 months. Management of that data is crucial to controlling storage costs.

Click here to read an in-depth analysis of DLM technology.

Founded in 1976 as a paper-atlas publishing company, DeLorme has grown into a leader in digital mapping, providing topographic products to consumers as well as enterprise and government customers, including NASA.

Last year, DeLorme launched TopoBird, a digital remote sensing platform that uses traditional aerial photography, satellite imagery and Laser/LIDAR (Light Detecting and Ranging) collection technologies to create detailed color and infrared maps.

On a given day, the TopoBird airplane generates more than 500GB—or about 749 CDs worth—of data as the plane digitally maps and aerially photographs sections of the United States with submeter accuracy.

The generation of so much data created the need for DeLorme to store terabytes of new data monthly. As a result, the companys on-site storage capacity needs quadrupled, from 10 terabytes to more than 43 terabytes today.