Businesses increasingly prefer Dell|EMC storage systems

Customers throughout EMEA have realised performance, value and cost advantages of Dell|EMC storage area network (SAN) systems.

Since the relationship was initiated in October 2001, more than 500 customers throughout EMEA have chosen Dell|EMC SAN systems to meet their business-critical data storage needs, including Mercedes-Benz Customer Assistance Centre (Netherlands), The Ordnance Survey (Ireland), North Tipperary County Council (Ireland), Dedigate (Belgium) and Luton Borough Council (UK). For these diverse organisations the key measurement of success was ROI.

"In the current economic climate ROI means a lot of return on little investment, IT organisations need to select storage vendors not just on cheapest price but also those who manage storage better, to maintain storage service level agreements," said Tony Bogatie, Enterprise Group Systems Director of Dell South Africa.

"Applying our world-class manufacturing and supply chain efficiencies drives down total cost of ownership (TCO), which makes managing a Dell|EMC solution a reality for organisations of all sizes, across all industries," said Walid Moneimne, Vice-President, Enterprise Systems Group, Dell EMEA. "When we announced our partnership with EMC over a year ago, we were confident that we would be able to offer a complete portfolio of products and services. These customers demonstrate the growing demand for the Dell|EMC offering in EMEA."

When the time came to replace its storage infrastructure, Maastricht based Mercedes-Benz CAC chose a Dell|EMC system that integrated easily into the existing IT infrastructure while providing the availability needed to support 24/7 service. The Mercedes-Benz CAC is a dedicated call centre that provides services and support to Mercedes-Benz drivers throughout Europe. The centre processes one million contacts per year from troubled drivers and customers enquiring about Mercedes-Benz products and services.

Following consultation with Dell, the Mercedes-Benz CAC deployed a SAN cluster that included Dell|EMC storage arrays and management software, two Dell PowerEdge 8450 servers for database support, and additional servers to support other applications. A Dell PowerVault 136T tape library was used to continuously back up data.

Thors Tielemans, CEO, Mercedes-Benz CAC, NV said: "Dell advised us to use Dell|EMC for the solution - perhaps the Mercedes-Benz of storage media. To us, this confirmed that Dell maintains the same high quality standards that we do."

As part of an initiative to make survey information available online, OSi implemented a Dell|EMC storage system that supports 6TB of data. The system, which has delivered administration and management efficiencies, stores online maps and aerial photographs of Ireland.

Commenting on the deployment, Cormac Clancy, IT Manager, Ordnance Survey Ireland, said: "The Dell|EMC system was specifically designed with TCO in mind and this has enabled OSi to meet the goal of delivering an online national archive of maps directly to our customers."

North Tipperary County Council is committed to improving the quality of the economic, social and cultural life of its citizens by the provision of services appropriate to local government. North Tipperary in Ireland has a population in excess of 60 000.

The County Council wanted to provide an information centric infrastructure through a low-cost solution that could be built and expanded upon in the future in line with its business demands.

Dell was responsible for both installation and configuration of a Dell|EMC storage array and was central to getting the system up-and-running quickly. In addition, the council deployed Dell PowerEdge servers to power business management applications and meet its extensive intranet and extranet requirements. The contract also includes three years of Dell Premier Gold Enterprise support.

The performance and value of Dell`s industry-standard systems were key considerations by North Tipperary County Council. Most significantly, however, was Dell`s Premier Gold Enterprise support which includes an assigned technical account management team, four-hour response, engineer-to-engineer access and remote monitoring.

Ger Lynch, Head of Information Systems, North Tipperary County Council, said: "Cost, product quality and reliable post sales support were all key factors in our decision-making process to find the right IT partner for us. The Dell|EMC solution was designed specifically with scalability, flexibility and total cost of ownership in mind, and allows us to efficiently manage the ever-growing volume of information that has become central to the work we carry out."

Dedigate, based in Belgium, is a pioneer in delivering managed dedicated hosting services to large enterprise customers, e-commerce marketplaces, system integrators, application service providers and Web designers across a broad range of industries. When Dedigate won a contract to create and manage the IT infrastructure for the Quadrem e-marketplace - the biggest worldwide electronic trading floor for buyers and sellers in the mining, minerals and metals industries - it needed a high-performance, reliable infrastructure that was cost-effective to deploy, easy to manage, and offered future investment protection.

Dedigate`s solution comprises over 55 Dell PowerEdge servers, backed up by a Dell|EMC SAN, which supports the e-marketplace`s rapidly growing databases. One of the largest challenges for Dedigate was to build a scalable storage solution to handle the current and future demands of the Quadrem e-marketplace. Dell met this challenge and helped to implement a Dell|EMC storage system capable of supporting up to 21TB of data.

Joost Metten, Technical Director, Dedigate: "Achieving scalability was one of the biggest challenges for us - with a cost-effective, high-end Dell|EMC SAN solution we are now able to ensure that the infrastructure meets all the current and future demands of the Quadrem e-marketplace."

The UK`s LBC recently selected a Dell|EMC storage solution to support Luton`s drive to become one of the first councils to e-enable its public services. This initiative, which is inline with the UK government`s 2005 deadline for delivering public services online, will achieve cost-efficiencies through increased integration with adjacent public services. Luton`s 185 000 residents and members of the business community will benefit from greater choice, convenience and accessibility.

"As well as being the best technical solution, the Dell|EMC solution will also help us to reduce the TCO, a critical objective for the council. Quite simply, this solution was chosen over competitors after it became clear it was the only one which met all the criteria LBC needed," said Chris Kadwill, ICT manager, Luton Borough Council.

Dell|EMC storage systems provide customers with centrally managed network storage that maximises the value of IT infrastructure by reducing the cost of administration and support. These storage systems offer the availability, data protection, performance and scalability to help reduce unplanned downtime and improve application deployment, while allowing institutions to grow their storage systems when and how they need to.