Dell-Cass Information Systems, Inc.

Vendor: Dell (NYSE: DELL)
Customer: Cass Information Systems, Inc. www.cassinfo.com      
Vertical Markets: Finance

Technology Used: Dell PowerEdge 2850 and 2950 blade servers with Intel Xeon processors, Dell PowerEdge 1855 and 1955 blade servers with Intel Xeon processors, Dell OptiPlex GX280, GX300, 745, 755 desktops, Dell Latitude D620, D630, D800, D830 notebooks, Dell PowerVault storage arrays, VMware ESX Server 3.0

Solution: A Missouri-based company with 900 employees, Cass Information Systems, Inc. specializes in processing invoices for a multitude of freight, utility, and telecom companies.

Faced with the possibility of paying for an expensive expansion of the power and cooling infrastructure in their data center, the company began looking for ways to consolidate their physical servers, which would allow them to avoid these costs. The company also wanted to increase the virtualization of their system to save time and make it easier to perform server administration tasks.

To meet their needs, Cass Information Systems, Inc. deployed a number of Dell PowerEdge servers with Intel Xeon processors. They also deployed Dell PowerVault storage solutions and VMware virtualization software, and purchased a number of desktops and notebooks for end users. Throughout the upgrades, the company relied on Dell Enterprise Support Services to address any problems and ensure the process went smoothly.

Since implementing Dell’s solutions, the company has realized a staggering number of benefits. They managed to cut the number of physical servers from 50 to 14, a 72 percent reduction, and also lowered their server footprint by 71 percent by consolidating 3.5 racks of servers into just one. Before these consolidations and reductions, the company had only a limited number of available circuits. Upgrading these would have cost about $70,000, an expense the company was able to defer.

By reducing its server footprint, Cass Information Systems, Inc. was also able to avoid spending an additional $90,000 to upgrade numerous air conditioning units in the data center. Additional advantages include a recovery time objective that is 75 percent faster, hardware upgrades that are 88 percent faster, a testing environment that is 99 percent more efficient, and CPU utilization rates that are up to 700 percent higher due to the deployment of virtualization software.

Further details: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/casestudies/885_CassInfoSystems_Ad_89999398.pdf