The charity has implemented the Storage Center SAN and storage virtualisation platform from supplier Compellent, and a VMware virtual server environment, in order to support operations including this year's 'Do Something Funny For Money' campaign. The implementation was led by IT services firm Fordway Solutions.

As a result, Comic Relief has cut the number of servers it uses by one fifth -- now running four physical machines hosting 20 virtual servers -- and as a result is saving costs on power, cooling and datacentre space, it said. It also has simpler storage management, improved data access times and faster data recovery.

John Thompson, head of IT at the charity, said the SAN had been "instrumental in reducing our IT capital and operational costs" and also "ensures that our systems are better protected from potential downtime and data loss".

Comic Relief can add capacity when required for special projects. Before the implementation, its SAN and its two network-attached storage systems were reaching full capacity and struggling to cope.

"We can create any size of virtual volume up front, and actually add new storage capacity as and when we need it," Thompson said. "We can also monitor capacity use through the advanced reporting tools included on the Compellent SAN and make sure we're fully optimised at all times."