South Dakota Library Network

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No matter how isolated they are in sparsely populated South Dakota, residents of the state are never far from a library—a library, in fact, with more than 4 million books, journals, videos and other bibliographic items. This resource is South Dakota Library Network (SDLN).

The organization is based in Spearfish, South Dakota, on the grounds of Black Hills State University. With approximately 320,000 registered card holders and just over 2 million in circulation over the past year, the two older Sun Fire V1280 servers with UltraSPARC III processors labored to keep up with the growing number of queries and requests by users. Users commented on the slow performance of the network’s ExLibris Aleph online integrated library system, asking for faster response times.

SDLN decided to solve its problem by turning to Sun, vendor of the platform specified by ExLibris―and the SDLN’s preferred vendor from a successful six-year relationship. The solution was an upgrade of the existing Sun Fire V1280 servers with UltraSPARC IV+ processors to enable a migration from Aleph 16 to the faster, enhanced Aleph 18. A Sun Fire V890 with UltraSPARC IV+ processors provides a new test environment. A pair of Sun Fire T2000 servers with UltraSPARC T1 processors hosts the online catalog to spread out the load on the infrastructure. Solaris 10 Operating System provides a flexible, fast operating environment, especially with ZFS. This enhanced file system is especially useful to SDLN because of its speed, which is significantly faster compared to traditional RAID arrays.

Rounding out the solution are Sun storage products including the Sun StorageTek 3320 SCSI array, Sun StorageTek 3510 FC array, Sun StorageTek T3 array and Sun StorageTek L25 tape library. Sun Advantage Partner Applied Engineering, Inc. provided initial consulting on the design of the solution.

The project was a huge success for SDLN. It increased the performance of the OPAC software by 20 percent―five seconds―thanks in part to the performance boost provided by the Sun Fire T2000 servers. In addition, Sun contributed more than superior technology. The Sun Upgrade Advantage Program made the Sun Fire V1280 upgrade financially feasible, staying within the organization’s tight budget.

Another major factor contributing to the win was the Try and Buy Program for the Sun Fire T2000. “Without risk, I loaded the T2000 with our OPAC software and ran it against our test server,” says Technology Integration Specialist Sean Crooks. “That’s when I knew we had a winner.”

The low environmental impact of the Sun Fire T2000 also is important to SDLN. “We draw electricity from the Black Hills State University power plant and have to be careful about how much we use,” Crooks says. “We plugged in the T2000s and didn’t see any increase in the power draw.”

With the outstanding service provided through SDLN’s Sun Spectrum service contract, the organization can be confident that parts will be delivered within a day. Another crucial factor in the win was the performance of a Sun field engineer, as part of Sun Professional Services, who helped hook up the new storage equipment. This service allowed SDLN to focus on getting their applications working versus trying to install and configure their new equipment “From beginning to end, Sun delivered world-class service and products,” says Crooks. “And the result is we’re able to fulfill our mission to align emerging technologies to meet patron needs.”