Financial Firm Transforms IT Infrastructure with EMC to Enable
Business Growth
HOPKINTON, Mass., Nov. 13,
2012 /PRNewswire/ -- EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC) today
announced that Williams & Fudge, an accounts receivable
management firm serving 1,200 colleges, universities and financial
institutions, selected EMC® VNX® unified storage and EMC
RecoverPoint™ to transform its business operations and accelerate
server and desktop virtualization. With EMC and VMware®
virtualization and cloud infrastructure technologies, the company
has achieved business expansion, improved availability of
mission-critical applications including Microsoft SharePoint, SQL
Server and VMware Zimbra email; and significantly lowered hardware
and support costs while delivering new services to its internal
clients.
Customer Benefits:
- Improved Performance—More than 250 users are able to
launch their virtual desktops 90% faster for PCs since Williams
& Fudge implemented EMC VNX with a FLASH 1st
automated tiering strategy.
- Instantaneous Response – Since implementing VNX,
Williams & Fudge has achieved instantaneous response times for
Microsoft SharePoint indexing and search functions while
maintaining high performance.
- Comprehensive Data Protection—Using EMC RecoverPoint and
VMware, Williams & Fudge can migrate virtual machines (VMs) to
a disaster recovery site 200 miles away in just 30 minutes, and has
achieved 100% availability for its critical applications.
- Increased Efficiency—Williams & Fudge has
substantially reduced potential hardware costs and supporting a
200-employee headcount increase—all without additional IT
staff.
Customer Challenges and Solution:
Williams & Fudge's business was expanding as demand
increased for assistance with collecting receivables on college
loans and other debt from higher-education and financial
institutions. The firm's previous physical IT infrastructure lacked
sufficient scalability to handle the company's growth. It also
required significant management resources, which was a drain on
Williams & Fudge's lean IT staff.
With the help of EMC Premier Velocity Solution Provider eGroup,
Williams & Fudge selected EMC VNX unified storage to transform
its business. VNX has enabled the firm to deliver new IT
services, such as the launch of a new business unit, to its
internal clients. VNX provides Williams & Fudge with a FLASH
1st automated tiering strategy that leverages the EMC
FAST™ Suite, along with Flash and high-capacity disk drives. VNX
supports Williams & Fudge's Microsoft SharePoint, SQL Server,
VMware Zimbra email and custom-built Linux applications.
Williams & Fudge has virtualized 100% of its server
infrastructure with VMware vSphere and has virtualized 260 desktops
using VMware View. Williams & Fudge relies on VMware vStorage
API for Array Integration (VAAI) and EMC VSI plug-ins for vCenter
to streamline integration between VNX and VMware, enabling faster
provisioning and copying of virtual machines, among other
tasks.
For disaster recovery, Williams & Fudge uses EMC
RecoverPoint continuous data protection and VMware vCenter Site
Recovery Manager (SRM) to replicate its virtualized infrastructures
across two data centers located 200 miles apart.
Customer Quotes:
Phillip Reynolds, Data Center
Director, Williams & Fudge
"Our company has more than doubled in size to 360 employees
while our lean IT staff of three employees has remained the
same—something that wouldn't have been possible without EMC and
VMware technology. As our company continues to grow—even two- or
three-fold—we're very comfortable that EMC and VMware technology
will enable our data center to scale with the business."
"We took a very hard look at another storage vendor but
determined it wasn't going to deliver the performance we needed for
our intensive SharePoint and SQL Server workloads and, in
particular, our virtual desktop workload. Plus, it didn't have the
streamlined integration with VMware that makes managing our
environment so easy. EMC was the clear choice for us and we
are extremely happy with how EMC has performed."
"We've transformed into a proactive business, ready for whatever
comes next. If a new client project requires 50 additional staff
members, we have the agility to create up to 50 desktops in no
time. For example, we supported the creation of a new division with
employees who move to new workspaces every few weeks and need to
log in to their desktops from different locations. By leveraging
technology as a business enabler, we can rapidly respond to dynamic
needs and deliver new services to attract clients."
"With EMC VNX and the FAST Suite backing our virtualized desktop
infrastructure, we're getting great performance—even when boot
storms occur. It's amazing—just a little flash goes a long way. Our
call center agents log into their virtual desktops or reboot in
only 30 seconds when it used to take five to 10 minutes for PCs.
And because they operate on commissions, enabling our agents to get
to work faster contributes to increased revenue for the
company."
"SharePoint is the hub of our business operations that connects
thousands of documents with our employees for filling out forms,
submitting applications, and managing accounts. With VNX and Flash
1st, we've been able to deliver instantaneous response
times to SharePoint indexing and search functions. SharePoint
performance isn't even affected when the infrastructure loads 250
virtual desktops in 10 to 15 seconds. Unisphere comes with
application-specific wizards for SharePoint that make it easy to
provision storage and perform other administrative tasks."
"We credit EMC and VMware with enabling significant cost
savings. We have decreasing potential hardware costs. The number of
help desk calls and overall IT support cost per user also has
dropped substantially. Instead of patching and maintaining hundreds
of desktops and servers, we simply upgrade a few golden images.
Lastly, as a result of the excellent integration between EMC and
VMware solutions, we can add virtual desktops and machines, disk
drives and applications very quickly and easily."
"EMC's RecoverPoint is one of those technologies that actually
lives up to everything it is supposed to be. It has allowed our
business to have peace of mind and to have our data backed up
off-site with very little time to get the data moved over. The
bandwidth reduction is phenomenal. We are doing this across a very
small pipe."
"RecoverPoint and VMware SRM enable us to migrate all of our
virtual machines from our primary data center to another site 200
miles away in about 30 minutes. Because everything is integrated
and pre-scripted, we just press a button and it's done. As a result
of having an agile cloud infrastructure, we have achieved 100%
availability with virtually zero RPO and RTO's. I can sleep
well at night knowing our data is protected."
Additional Resources:
- Learn more about EMC VNX and EMC RecoverPoint
- Connect with EMC via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn
and ECN
About EMC
EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and
service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a
service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud
computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC
accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments
to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset —
information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way.
Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.
EMC, FAST, RecoverPoint, VNX and Unisphere are registered
trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and other countries. All
other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective
owners.
SOURCE EMC Corporation