SAN System Helps Joyce Meyer Ministries Spread 'The Good Word'

In early 2004, Sal Cincotta was looking for a storage area network (SAN) system he could have faith in. As information technology manager for Joyce Meyer Ministries, a worldwide media-based nonprofit organization, Cincotta was responsible for administering over 25 million records dating back to 1992 and handling a peak load of up to 50,000 business transactions a day. The organization generates revenue for ministry activities through sales of books, magazines, and videos. Its databases handle not just transactions, but a vast store of digitized materials and more.

"We had installed a SAN system from one of the biggest names in the storage industry," says Cincotta. "It was turning into a nightmare. They needed to send an engineer for every little change we wanted to make. It was too slow for what we wanted to do and expensive as well." The last straw came when the vendor sent a new firmware update. "Performance immediately dropped by 20 percent," says Cincotta. "We were having problems, and they treated us like small fish. Performance was down, support was poor, and we were being nickel-and-dimed with charges."