One virtual office thatspans the globeDell transforms the mobility and efficiency of its global workforce with a UC&C solution that also is expected to save more than $1 million by consolidating infrastructure

Customer profile

Company Dell

Industry Technology

Country United States

Employees 100,000

Website www.dell.com

“We were able to consolidate Exchange servers so they run in only six global data centers instead of 49 data centers by centralizing our messaging service on next-generation Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell Storage.” Cloyce Yarborough, IT Senior Manager, Global Messaging and Collaboration Engineering, Dell

Business needDell wanted to increase mobility and

productivity in a dispersed workforce

while driving costs down through

infrastructure consolidation and

operational efficiency.

SolutionThe company upgraded its unified

communications and collaboration

(UC&C) capabilities to meet the

unique needs of employees, sites and

regions while lowering capital and

operating expenses.

Benefits• Increases productivity, especially

for mobile and remote workers

• Boosts innovation by facilitating

deeper and broader collaboration

• Reduces travel time and expense by

using video conferencing

• Consolidates email servers from 49

data centers to six data centers

• Expects to save more than $1

million in capital and operating

expenses

Solutions at a glance• Mobility• Unified Communications &

Collaboration

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“ Employees who use Lync can place and receive calls using their desktop, as long as they have an internet connection. This is really helpful for people who travel a lot but also for employees who work remotely.” Casey Birch, Telecom Engineering Consultant, Dell

After an initial implementation of the Microsoft UC&C platform across sites in 40 countries, Dell wanted to further boost productivity and reduce costs by fine-tuning its implementation of Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint Server and Lync Server, the three applications in the Microsoft UC&C suite. Casey Birch, telecom engineering consultant at Dell, says, “We set out to improve the user experience and consolidate and update the infrastructure for improved IT efficiency. We studied how different roles used the technology, and then devised a strategy to give everyone the tools they need to work from any location as if they were in the same office.”

Matching application services and devices to employee rolesTo get the insight it needed from users, Dell conducted an extensive user survey and interview process. JP Glick, director of Client Engineering at Dell, says, “We interviewed more than 400 people across the organization, asking what they do and how they do it. Are they mobile? Do they work remotely? Which of the tools do they use and how? The information we gathered allows us to associate roles with user personas, so we can issue specific devices and software to employees that will best meet their needs.”

Integrated communications tools such as phone, email, instant

messaging (IM), video conferencing and team collaboration

sites have transformed how people work and live. While

Microsoft Unified Communications and Collaboration

(UC&C) solutions provide all these services in an integrated

platform, employees use the individual tools very differently.

Understanding these differences is critical to providing fast,

reliable UC&C services, especially for mobile and remote

workers.

Products & Services

Hardware

Dell EqualLogic PS6210X and PS6210E arrays

Dell Networking S6000, S4810 and N3048 switches

Dell PowerEdge M1000e blade enclosure

Dell PowerEdge R630 rack servers and M630 blade servers

Dell PowerEdge VRTX shared infrastructure platform

Dell Storage SC4020 all-in-one array

Dell Storage SC9000 array controller

Software

Dell MessageStats

Dell Migration Manager for Exchange Server

Partner

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013

Microsoft Lync Server 2013

Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013

Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager

Skype for Business

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Who needs travel? Video conference, on demandAfter the survey, Dell began encouraging its distributed teams to use video conferencing in Lync (now Skype for Business) more often because it’s an easy and affordable way to improve communication and camaraderie, which in turn boosts innovation. To ensure employees have a seamless experience, Birch says, “We integrated the high-definition video-conferencing systems that are in many of our global meeting rooms with Microsoft Lync. That way, it’s very easy for anyone to join a conference. People can use Lync-enabled Windows phones or iPhones, and when they join, it’s not just an audio meeting. They can see the other participants as well as any visuals, such as a slide deck.”

In January 2016, employees placed 8,000 video calls. Commenting on the effects of the increasing usage, Michael Powell, global video conferencing manager at Dell, says, “Many employees say the time they save by not traveling is worth even more than the averted travel expenses. Seeing each other also increases participants’ concentration on the topic at hand, compared with the multitasking that often takes place during audio-only conferences.” IT staff also travel less because they can troubleshoot and resolve many issues by using desktop sharing in Lync.

Finding harmony between traditional and modern phone technologiesDell now associates phone numbers, as well as other UC&C services, with employees’ desktops so workers have anytime, anywhere access to their phone services. “Employees who use Lync can place and receive calls using their desktop, as long as they have an internet connection,” says Birch. “This is really helpful for people who travel a lot but also for employees who work remotely.”

To deliver fast and reliable voice, conferencing, IM and chat services globally, Dell distributes its Lync infrastructure across 10 global data centers. Five are primary sites, and the other five support mirrored environments that take over automatically in case of an outage. “To deliver real-time voice, conferencing and video services, we needed to have infrastructure relatively close to employees, which is why we divided our infrastructure into five regions,” explains Birch. To simplify and automate Lync administration, IT staff use tools that come with the solution. They also use Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager for managing and monitoring the solution.

The ongoing transition to a more efficient SharePoint cultureDepartments and project teams rely heavily on web portals to share information and tools, including files, dashboards and business intelligence tools. Cloyce Yarborough, IT senior manager for Global Messaging and Collaboration Engineering at Dell, says, “We are in the process of changing how employees use portals so that sites aren’t just huge data repositories. Our new governance model ensures that each site is organized in a logical manner, and that it falls under the control of a specific department and executive. We’ve also automated monitoring processes using built-in SharePoint tools so we can see site traffic and decommission unused sites.”

Employees can manage all messaging from one inboxTaking advantage of the unified messaging capabilities in Microsoft Exchange Server, employees now use their email inbox to access calendars and voicemail, reducing the number of accounts they manage. “We were using custom appliances from telecom vendors to support voicemail before

“ It’s very easy for anyone to join a conference. People can use Lync-enabled Windows phones or iPhones, and when they join, it’s not just an audio meeting. They can see the other participants as well as any visuals, such as a slide deck.” Casey Birch, Telecom Engineering Consultant, Dell

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moving to Lync,” says Birch. “Replacing them with unified messaging in Exchange Server significantly lowers our capital and operating expenses.”

Expected to save more than $1 million Dell has also consolidated the infrastructure supporting UC&C, which simplifies server management and saves both time and money. Yarborough says, “We used Microsoft Exchange 2013 along with Dell Enterprise servers, storage and switches to create a messaging service that meets the growing demands of the Dell business. We were able to consolidate Exchange servers so they run in only six global data centers instead of 49 data centers by centralizing our messaging service on next-generation Dell PowerEdge servers and Dell Storage. In addition to delivering the compute and I/Os per second we need in a smaller footprint, we also expect to save more than $1 million in capital and operational expenditures over the next two years.” IT personnel uses Dell Migration Manager for Exchange to migrate inboxes for new employees after acquisitions.

Today, the UC&C solution includes 180,000 mailboxes running on 300 Dell PowerEdge servers including R630 rack servers as well as M630 blade servers enclosed in M1000e and VRTX modular platforms. To provide staff with quick email performance, Dell stores Exchange data on a storage area network based on Dell EqualLogic PS6210 arrays that easily support spikes in I/Os per second. Lync and SharePoint databases reside on Dell Storage SC-series arrays. “The EqualLogic models are better suited for dedicated application storage, whereas the SC-series models are designed for multiple databases on one shared platform,” Yarborough explains.

To meet increasing network requirements, engineers refreshed some Dell Networking switches. For example, physical servers now connect to the network and to the EqualLogic storage via S4810 switches. S6000 switches provide the distributed switch uplinks required by physical servers to connect to the wider network. In addition, engineers configured a dedicated network connection for Dell Remote Access Controller (DRAC) using N3048 switches. Boosts mobility and work-life balanceMany employees today can work from any location. That’s because laptops running the updated UC&C solution facilitate a mobile office. As a result, Dell can give more employees the option to telecommute, so they can achieve a better work-life balance and reduce time commuting. Debra Slapak, a global marketing manager at Dell, says, “Using UC&C means both employee flexibility and faster and better collaboration, which helps us accelerate the value we deliver to our customers.” In January 2016 alone, the Dell implementation of Lync supported 13 million IM sessions, more than 7 million file transfers and 17 million peer-to-peer calls.

Providing better solutions for customers with lessons learned By fine-tuning its UC&C solution, Dell has learned critical lessons that help it remain one of the leading systems integrators of Microsoft UC&C technologies worldwide. Glick says, “My team works with customers at our Executive Briefing Centers quite often, sharing best practices, so they can also reap the benefits of working with anyone — anywhere in the world — in a virtual setting.”

Dell, the Dell logo, EqualLogic, MessageStats and PowerEdge are trademarks of Dell Inc. Microsoft, Windows Server, the Microsoft Logo and the Windows Server Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. Availability and terms of Dell Software, Solutions and Services vary by region. This case study is for informational purposes only. Dell makes no warranties — expressed or implied — in this case study. Reference Number: 10022952 © August 2016, Dell Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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