A global manufacturer expected better than inconsistent support, a lack of communication and increased service calls for EMC storage maintenance. Service Express was their answer to improve service efficiencies and establish reliable support.
Several years of exceptional service and expertise led the manufacturer to partner with Service Express to meet its EMC storage support needs.
Challenges Uncovered
Implementing the traditional OEM three-year refresh cycle
After evaluating the company’s EMC support needs, Service Express identified underlying problems:
- Spending multimillion dollars on CapEx every three years due to EMC dictating the refresh strategy
- Refreshed equipment provided little to no performance improvements
- Experiencing rising OpEx costs every three years to plan, coordinate and provide staffing for a hardware refresh.
Industry:
Manufacturing
Location:
GrandRapids, MI
$3.2M
in CapEx savings
3 years
Added to useful equipment life
Extra time & cost savings redirected to essential IT projects
The Service Express Solution
Add disk space and extend the life of EMC equipment by three years
Service Express offered a more effective approach to the OEM-endorsed refresh cycle:
- The hardware solutions team evaluated the performance and capacity needs of all EMC systems to determine the necessary upgrades
- The presented reliability data for EMC hardware showing it to be stable long after the OEM-recommended refresh timeframe
- Added additional disk space to meet the company’s storage capacity and to extend the life of equipment
At first, the company’s IT leaders were unsure of the implications of an extended hardware life cycle. The common assumption is that devices have a higher failure rate toward the end of their useful life. However, when looking at over 30 years of Service Express support ticket history, the data shows that hardware is stable long after three years. The graph below indicates that disk storage experiences a failure rate of ≤.2%.
The Results
CapEx and OpEx savings shifted to fund essential IT projects
The extended refresh cycle saved the company $3.2 million in CapEx costs.
The decrease in time, staffing and other resource costs by postponing the hardware refresh generated significant OpEx savings.
With a new hardware refresh strategy, the IT department has more control in planning for its next refresh. Service Express enabled cost and time savings to redirect towards other resources and essential IT projects.
