Data growth at Venetian Macao tops 20% annually. "While our heavy casino transactions eat up a lot of storage," said Gilson, "we generate lots of files daily because of our many development plans."

The enormous amount of customer data that Venetian Macao puts online also required a more robust storage system. "You might think that we can keep customer data offline, but even when customers only return every six months, we want their preferences immediately available to our frontline staff," said Gilson. "I think customers want us to remember their preferences and have no need to tell us what they want every time they return."

In addition, the firm needs a robust storage infrastructure that won't slow down its mission-critical systems such as the central priority services for dispatching guest requests during backup.

In view of the expansion it underwent last year, Venetian Macao had pressing needs for additional capacity and a faster storage system. "Storage is a basic building block of IT--when storage is impacted, the systems it supports are all in trouble."