United States Attorneys Standardize

Panzura, a leading provider of global cloud storage solutions, today announced that the Executive Office for United States Attorneys has awarded a contract to standardize globally on Panzura for its next-generation Storage-as-a-Service platform serving all United States Attorneys' Office locations nationwide. The solution will consolidate storage from approximately 265 USAOs, across all U.S. judicial districts, to an internal storage cloud. The Panzura Global Cloud Storage System will replace some legacy distributed storage infrastructure with a centralized repository to improve data access, meet stringent security and performance standards and dramatically increase operational efficiency.

The Panzura Global Cloud Storage System provides globally-distributed organizations with a consolidated storage infrastructure that offers cross-site LAN access to all files, integrated file locking, global deduplication, military-grade encryption, continuous snapshots, fast replication and DR, advanced access management and massive scalability in capacity. In addition, Panzura meets critical federal compliance requirements for FIPS 140-2, FISMA Moderate and USGCB certifications.

Government agencies and commercial organizations commonly store data on their own filers, incurring large costs associated with their purchase and maintenance and those for upgrades, facilities and personnel.

With electronic discovery pushing decades-old storage architectures and capacity to their limits, the widespread adoption of cloud computing amongst all U.S. federal agencies is an ongoing initiative by the U.S. General Services Administration to streamline the creation of sustainable, cost-effective IT services for the federal government. Addressing increasing storage costs and sprawl is one goal of this initiative.

The use of Panzura by EOUSA exemplifies the push to move mission-critical applications and data to the cloud to avoid spiraling CapEx, manual IT intervention and data retrieval delays, while providing encryption features to support a public cloud option with all necessary security compliance.

With approximately 265 geographically dispersed USAOs and two existing data centers, United States Attorney locations share common characteristics, yet each district also features unique business mandates and varied storage footprints. The amount of storage ranges from approximately 3TB for smaller offices and up to 17TB for larger offices. Panzura storage replaces a siloed, dispersed infrastructure with a seamless, fast and centralized storage platform that is interconnected by a global file system and drastically reduces system-wide duplication of data.

With ubiquitous real-time access to all data globally, the Panzura solution allows EOUSA to leverage efficient cloud object storage to reduce CapEx significantly, while making users much more self-sufficient in finding and obtaining data whenever and wherever needed. Panzura's award-winning Global Cloud Storage System leverages cloud storage at the back end and presents a seamless NAS-like interface at the front end, which, along with all standard NAS features and controls, makes data feel local regardless of location. Data is securely accessed on a need-to-see basis, and chargeback capability allows IT to allocate internal costs according to usage.

"Panzura is proud to play a central role in the efforts of EOUSA to centralize data access across all United States Attorneys Offices, reduce costs, and meet stringent security requirements," said Randy Chou, CEO of Panzura. "EOUSA is leading the way to tap into the benefits of the cloud for a globally-distributed organization while meeting compliance and SLA requirements. Panzura will fill a vital need for highly-secure access to the efficiencies of the cloud with a tightly-integrated NAS solution to meet these aggressive storage goals of EOUSA, all while reducing costs across the board."

You might not think the state’s most powerful politician would take the time to show up for Town Meeting, but John Lynch isn’t your ordinary Governor.

People in town say it’s not unusual to see Lynch show up to the annual session wearing blue jeans a sweatshirt. And you won’t hear any long-winded speeches in front of the other residents in town, they say. Lynch keeps to himself and leaves the town’s business to selectmen.

“It’s kind of nice to see him at Town Meeting, everybody just lets him be a citizen,” said Hopkinton resident Sharon Rivard. “He’s just like everybody else when he’s there.”

Similar to his approval record, residents of the 5,500-person town smile and speak fondly about their popular leader and neighbor.

Lynch drives himself to the Colonial Village Pharmacy-Supermarket to shop for groceries, and is an active athlete, playing in neighborhood hockey games at Kimball Pond in the winter and cycling Hopkinton’s hilly landscape in warmer months.

“Sometimes you’ll see him out with his wife, walking his dog,” said Susan Hencke, a potter and Gould Hill neighbor of Lynch’s who has lived in Hopkinton for 18 years. “He’s just a regular guy in the community.”

Still, for other Hopkinton residents, Lynch’s iconic house on Gould Hill is the first thing that comes to mind when asked about their neighbor.

 Lynch built his 11,000 square foot home atop Gould Hill, which sits 850 feet above sea level and offers the best views in town, some say one of the best views in the Granite State.

“Nobody here has a more beautiful view of the mountains,” said one resident who declined to give his name at Everyday Cafe in Contoocook on Saturday. “And he enjoys it. That’s all I know.”

The multi-million-dollar home was built with a 20-by-40-foot swimming pool, a tennis court, a cabana, and a detached three car garage, among other luxuries.

People in town took notice of the construction in part because of the owner, and also because of its location on the former Gould Hill apple orchard.

Some neighbors recall the troop of trucks that rumbled through Hopkinton to build on the magnificent, nearly eighty-acre property, with breathtaking views of Mount Washington.

Others bemoaned the loss of a small section of the orchard – which dates back to the 1700s – when the Lynches started construction back in 2006.

“It’s a big house, but there’s a lot of those around this state,” said Erick Leadbeater, who owned and operated the orchard and sold the land to the Lynches through a revocable trust called “Gould Hill ‘B’” when Leadbeater planned to retire. “Some people criticized him for that.

“I think it was more the other party, the typical political sniping. But it’s a well thought-out place and can be very entertaining.”

Lynch built on a part of the Gould Hill Orchards that produced Macintosh apples, Leadbeater said, which were losing favor at the time.