CASE STUDY
Founded in 1451 by Nicholas V, the
Vatican Apostolic Library preserves and
displays rare manuscripts from as early
as the third century AD. The Vatican Apostolic
Library holds pivotal cultural documents
that include letters from important historical
figures; drawings and notes by artists and
scientists such as Michelangelo and Galileo;
and treaties from all eras, in all fields of
learning, from all parts of the world.
Improving reliability and enhancing
operational efficiency
The Vatican Apostolic Library implemented
an integrated data centre solution to create
a robust and highly available network
infrastructure to support the conservation of
its literary treasures.
The manuscripts in the Vatican Apostolic
Library are extremely delicate and sensitive
to light, humidity and temperature.
Handling the material presents significant
risk of damage or even destruction to the
document. To guarantee the preservation
of its documents, the Vatican Apostolic
Library has begun an extensive manuscript
digitisation project.
The purpose of the data centre project was
to provide the technology and functionality
needed to support the future digital and
physical storage of the valued manuscripts,
on site at the Vatican. To accomplish this
goal, the existing data centre needed to
be completely dismantled and the site
equipped with a more efficient infrastructure
capable of delivering the high-performance
response times to its users. The new data
centre required a highly available, secure
network infrastructure to support the
massive data transfer effort and to provide
the capability to monitor and capture realtime
data across the physical environment.
This created a complex project with two
key design considerations. The first is
the transition of over 80,000 historical
manuscripts, held in the Vatican Apostolic
Library, to a high-quality digital format. This
aspect has been in process since 2012. The
second phase involved implementing the
upgraded network infrastructure that would
enable effective optimisation of data centre
cooling and power continuity, within the
confines of a historically significant quarter
of the Vatican.
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