Dell-EDCO

Vendor: Dell (NYSE: DELL)
Customer: EDCO www.edcogroupinc.com        
Vertical Markets: Technology

Technology Used: Dell PowerEdge M1000e modular blade enclosure, Dell PowerEdge M600 blade servers with quad-core Intel Xeon processors, Dell/EMC CX3-40 disk storage array, Dell PowerConnect 5448, M6220 switches, Dell Remote Access Card, Dell OpenManage Systems Management - IT Assistant, Citrix XenApp presentation server

Solution: Hospitals across the country are required to keep medical records to comply with federal and state law. However, many facilities lack the space and money to effectively do this, so they turn to EDCO and other similar companies to assist them with this task. EDCO converts hard copy documents into digital images so they can be efficiently stored and retrieved by hospitals as needed.

To run their image processing programs, EDCO used rack-mount servers. The company realized they were facing a serious problem when they ran out of rack space for servers that supported document conversion operations. This, along with the fact that they required additional processing power to run CPU-intensive utilities, prompted the company to begin looking for alternatives to their current setup.

To address their issues, EDCO consolidated their rack-mount servers onto Dell PowerEdge blade servers. They also deployed Dell/EMC disk storage arrays because of their disaster recovery capabilities. Implementing the new system did not translate into significant downtime for the company – Dell’s blade system was up and running within roughly 3 hours.

The blade system was an effective solution to EDCO's challenges, and has benefited the company greatly. By installing the new system, EDCO has realized a floor space savings of roughly 60 percent, and the quality of images processed by the company is now higher. Remote management has enabled EDCO to save 10 hours of work each month, and recovery time has decreased by an estimated 99 percent. Batch processing performance has increased almost 4-fold, and the power and cooling requirements for the blades are significantly lower than they were for the rack-mount servers. Incredibly, EDCO estimates the new system will pay for itself in less than 24 months. 

Further details:  http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/casestudies/1122_2009_EDCO_G810004758(1).pdf