DST Launches Hosted File Archiving Service
December 14, 2010 Alex Woodie
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DST Systems, the Kansas City, Missouri, company that runs two large IBM i data centers for clients in healthcare, financial services, and other industries, last week unveiled Electronic File Solution (EFS), a new software as a service (SaaS) offering for handling the storage, retrieval, and retention of its clients business records. DST is opening up its considerable investment in IBM i servers, optical storage systems, and IBM tape libraries with its new EFS offering. With EFS, customers get a Web-based interface for uploading, managing, and retrieving documents that DST will store. Customers get 24/7 access to their documents, and the capability to specify document retention lengths. The EFS repository can be fed from document management systems, “legacy” systems, or even from old-fashioned paper using DST’s paper-to-digital conversion services. Support for litigation holds and e-discovery is also included. “In the current economic environment, reducing the costs associated with document storage is more important than ever before,” DST vice president Elizabeth DeZeeuw says in a press release. “Today’s regulatory environment, evolving industry standards, and the shear growth in records quantity are making electronic storage more attractive. EFS helps companies implement best practices and simplify access while reducing the time and money spent to manage their organization’s records.” According to DST’s December 2008 annual report, the company owns and operates a significant amount of IBM data processing equipment in three data centers. One of these data centers is designed to run Automated Work Distributor (AWD), its business process management (BPM) offering. This data center is a 13,000 square foot facility loaded with IBM i servers, SAN arrays, IBM tape libraries, and optical storage systems. It supports more than 30,000 AWD users working in the mutual fund, healthcare, insurance, and brokerage businesses. DST also operates its so-called Winchester data center, which supports various transactions for millions of accounts every day. DST also runs a backup data center that is an equivalent size to the Winchester data center, according to the publicly traded company’s annual reports. In addition to having a large base of backup IBM i servers to handle the AWD workload in the event of a disaster, this data center has 400 TB of DASD, and 30,000 MIPS of mainframe capacity. DST says EFS will appeal to companies in a range of industries, including financial services, law, healthcare, field sales, and property management. For more information, see www.dstsystems.com.
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