Art Museum of Estonia secures its digital art collection with an IBM Tivoli solution from Telegrupp

To read an Estonian version of this case study, click here.

The Art Museum of Estonia (Eesti Kunstimuuseum) houses, displays and conserves the country’s national art collection, including important works by both Estonian and international artists. The Museum employs more than 300 people at five sites: the Adamson-Eric Museum, the Kadriorg Art Museum, the Niguliste Museum, the Kristjan Raud House Museum, and a new main building – the Kumu Art Museum.

The Kumu Art Museum is a multifunctional facility that includes exhibition halls, an auditorium that offers diverse possibilities, and an education centre for children and art-lovers of all ages.

“For the first time in its nearly 100-year history, the Art Museum of Estonia has a building that both meets our requirements and is worthy of our collections of Estonian and international art,” says Tarmo Horn, IT Specialist at the Art Museum of Estonia.

Digital heritage
The Kumu Museum has been custom-built not only to store and display artworks, but also to assist in other important responsibilities such as education and conservation. For example, the Museum has decided to embark on a major project to create a digital record of its entire collection, using high-quality image files – and the IT architecture of the new building was designed with this project in mind.

“The images we are using are very detailed, and the files themselves can be large,” says Tarmo Horn. “Moreover, we often need to keep many images of each artwork – for example, if a painting is being restored, we take pictures of each stage in the process so that we can assess the effectiveness of the techniques we are using. In total, we already have more than four terabytes of data – and the project is still ongoing so we expect this to rise significantly over the next few years.”

In addition to the digital images, the Museum also has email software, Web servers and other IT systems that generate valuable data. When the Kumu Museum was being designed, the IT team asked Telegrupp, an IBM Business Partner, to propose an IT architecture that could safely store and back up all this data – and ensure that Estonia’s national art collection would be fully protected for the future.

“Telegrupp was one of the few companies capable of delivering a truly end-to-end service – including everything from building the server room and laying the cables through to installing the servers and software and providing ongoing support,” says Tarmo Horn. “Data backup and archiving was one of our most important concerns, and Telegrupp helped us evaluate products from ten different vendors and decide on the right solution: IBM Tivoli Storage Manager.”

Rapid and reliable
IBM Tivoli Storage Manager enables the Museum to perform incremental backups of its data: instead of copying the full 4TB across the network and onto tape each night, it is only necessary to back up new and edited files – usually less than 40GB per day.

“We can move the data from our five main servers across to the Tivoli Storage Manager server within about 20 minutes, and then it takes about an hour and a half to write it to tape,” explains Tarmo Horn. “This is a very acceptable backup window: the backup can be completed outside working hours and causes no disruption for our users.”

Tivoli Storage Manager can also be controlled remotely – enabling Telegrupp to take responsibility for managing the entire backup process.

“All I have to do is change the tapes occasionally: Telegrupp handles everything else!” says Tarmo Horn. “The support from Telegrupp is excellent, and allows Museum staff to concentrate on more important responsibilities.”

He concludes: “IBM Tivoli Storage Manager is an excellent solution, delivering a safe, reliable, rapid backup process that protects our data – and thus helps to safeguard the cultural heritage of Estonia for future generations.”