CART projects 100% payback in 36 months with high-performance, low-TCO IT infrastructure of Dell servers, desktops, laptops and storage

•  Backup/Recovery/Archiving•  Enterprise Storage•  Flexible Computing•  Power & Cooling•  Virtualization

“ We needed a complete infrastructure to encompass two central offices, nine toll plazas and partners within the government’s required timeframe.” André Fernando Possebon Agua, IT Manager, CART

Customer Profile

Company: Concessionária Auto Raposo Tavares (CART)

Industry: Transportation

Country: Brazil

Employees: 500

Web: www.cart.invepar.com.br

Business NeedCART faced the challenge of building a distributed business from the ground up in support of growing IT operations including consolidation of nine toll plazas and two headquarter sites with a fully redundant IT infrastructure optimized for virtualization.

SolutionDell was chosen to design and implement two redundant data centers supporting desktop and server virtualization using Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers, Dell OptiPlex™ desktops, Dell Latitude™ laptops, Dell EqualLogic™ storage and Dell PowerVault™ tape libraries.

  Benefits

•  36 months to payback 

•  7-person IT staff supports 500 employees and 600 partners 

•  2 hours per week spent administering storage due to the simplicity of Dell EqualLogic storage

Photograph by Olício Pelosi.

In Brazil, for instance, the Invepar Group owns concessions that manage the Rio de Janeiro subway and recently the Corredor Raposa Tavares, a stretch of approximately 276 miles of highway and country roads linking the cities of Bauru, Ourinhos and Presidente Epitácio in the state of São Paulo. Concessionária Auto Raposo Tavares (CART) was formed in 2009 to manage these roadways, provide maintenance and improvements to the roads, and operate medical emergency services and mechanical services for drivers. In addition to nine toll plazas, the company has its main data center in Bauru, divided between separate administrative headquarters and operational headquarters, to provide redundant disaster recovery capabilities.

Building a new IT infrastructure 

CART faced the major challenge of creating a new company and IT infrastructure to support operations which included building a new fully redundant data center capable of serving the nine toll plazas and the demands of 500 employees and partners in road maintenance and concessions. CART needed an IT solution at its headquarters that could integrate toll plazas without downtime. CART contacted Dell, HP and IBM to make proposals.

With efficiency as a key design requirement, CART wanted to virtualize servers to reduce hardware costs, space needs and power consumption. The company also wanted a virtualized desktop solution that could be used by employees with minimum involvement of IT. The virtualization projects were well underway with another provider using Citrix XenServer, and CART needed a hardware and software solution to support the initiatives.

Countries around the world are deregulating certain industries and looking to the private sector for innovative approaches to solving problems more efficiently.

“ The biggest challenge when starting up a company is finding a partner that will be there in case of need. We opted for Dell, due to the advantages of having a partner that offers excellent customer service in addition to state-of-the-art technology.” Emerson Thomazini, IT Coordinator, CART

Technology at Work

Services

Dell™ Consulting Services – Design and Implementation – Training

Dell Support Services

Hardware

Dell EqualLogic™ PS6000E and PS6000XV iSCSI SANs

Dell Latitude™ E5500, E4200 and E4300 laptops with Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processors

Dell OptiPlex™ 760 and 360 desktops with Intel Core 2 Duo processors

Dell OptiPlex FX160 FLX diskless desktops with Intel Atom™ processors 230 series

Dell PowerEdge™ R710 servers with Intel Xeon® processors 5600 series

Dell PowerEdge R610 servers with Intel Xeon processors 5500 series

Dell PowerEdge T610 servers with Intel Xeon processors 5500 series

Dell PowerVault™ TL2000 tape libraries

Dell Precision™ T3400 workstation with Intel Core 2 Duo processors

Dell 17” Flat Panel Monitors

Software

Microsoft® Office 2007

Microsoft SQL Server® 2008 database

Citrix Virtualization Xenserver 5.5

Windows Server® 2008 Enterprise

Windows XP SP2

Windows 7

Dell proposed a solution consisting of 11th generation Dell PowerEdge R710, R610 and T610 servers with Intel Xeon processors 5600 and 5500 series and Dell EqualLogic PS6000XV and PS6000E iSCSI storage. For the desktop virtualization solution, Dell recommended Dell OptiPlex FX160 FLX diskless desktops for the toll booth operators, and Dell OptiPlex 760 and 360 desktops for other employees. Dell provided Dell Latitude E5500 laptops for managers and directors and Dell Latitude E4300 notebooks for the toll plaza maintenance team who required mobility. For high-capacity graphics processing Dell suggested a Dell Precision T3400 workstation. A Dell PowerVault TL2000 tape library would provide redundant storage for each location that could be taken offsite for the safety of the company’s data.

High availability  storage environment

In order to optimize the environment, Dell Consulting Services designed the project’s architecture and performed infrastructure sizing. This would ensure that CART got the most value out of the technology it purchased. Dell Services configured 11 EqualLogic storage area network (SANs) for centralized data, the disaster recovery site and for each of the toll plazas.

EqualLogic provides CART with a broad choice of cost-efficient, highly scalable Internet SCSI (iSCSI) storage area network (SAN) arrays, which it took advantage of to simplify deployment, management and data protection. Because of the software package included with EqualLogic arrays, CART can easily and efficiently backup and protect its entire IT infrastructure, while avoiding the investment required for Fibre Channel.

For instance, to ensure high availability, the headquarters and central administration data is replicated daily between locations using the built-in replication capabilities of the Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SANs to guarantee high availability in case of a disaster.

In addition, Dell Services deployed the Dell PowerVault tape libraries for local tape backup. Dell also deployed 21 Dell PowerEdge servers and delivered the flex clients, desktops and laptops under a very challenging deadline and met the company’s expected timeframe. Dell centralized all Microsoft licensing for the office and virtualized environment, and finished the project by providing EqualLogic training.

Helping to meet budgets 

Dell was the only company capable of delivering a solution with a single point of contact for hardware and software support and with the capability for sourcing products in a collaborative way with other manufacturers.

“The biggest challenge when starting up a company is finding a partner that will be there in case of need,” says Emerson Thomazini, IT Coordinator, CART. “After careful consideration of the possible vendors, we opted for Dell, due to the advantages of having a partner that offers excellent customer service in addition to state-of-the-art technology. Dell also provided the extra advantage of having a sales location in the city where we are based, which can provide us with customized services. We submit all our projects to an evaluation by a Dell engineering team, which helps us fulfill our goals in terms of turnaround time, quality and budget.”

Dell also engaged a business partner, JBR, increasing the interaction with the client locally, which offered Dell excellent coverage and continuity in its relationship with CART.

Excellent TCO

CART is pleased with the outcome of the project and is enjoying all the performance it needs to run its Microsoft SQL Server 2008 databases, Microsoft Exchange 2007, Citrix XenApp and Microsoft Office applications.

The company has already purchased two more Dell EqualLogic PS6000XV and considers EqualLogic the best possible choice in storage. “We added

“ We submit all our projects to an evaluation by a Dell engineering team, which helps us fulfill our goals in terms of turnaround time, quality and budget.” Emerson Thomazini, IT Coordinator, CART

two more units with 4 terabytes volume and increased our processing and memory management speeds by adding the units,” says Lucas Picão Pereira, System Analyst. “We added the units without having to bring down the environment, and it took about 15 minutes.”

For the central management sites in Bauru, Dell defined a mission-critical SLA of 24x7 with a four-hour response window. For the toll plazas, Dell customized support according to its capability reach them. “For some of the most distant sites, we do not have a four-hour window, but the very few calls we have had have been answered in the shortest possible time, and we are very pleased with Dell’s responsiveness,” says André Fernando Possebon Agua, IT Manager, CART. “We needed a complete infrastructure, and Dell delivered a flawless technical

solution with excellent TCO. Dell was responsible for helping CART to go live with its two central offices, nine toll plazas and partners within the government’s required timeframe.”

CART is currently looking to upgrade and acquire equipment for new service locations throughout the roadway, and is again turning to Dell to meet its needs. “Looking to keep a redundant environment, we have recalculated the virtual machine memory consumption and will proceed to upgrade the R610 and R710 servers in both headquarters sites,” says Thomazini. “CART will also purchase more Dell laptops to increase the mobility of its users.

“We’ve learned a lot working with Dell, while being able to apply our own previous experience. Dell and CART have been working together, forging a real team.”

Availability and terms of Dell Services vary by region. For more information, visit: dell.com/servicedescriptions

© November 2010. Intel, Intel Atom, Intel Core and Intel Xeon are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States or other countries. Microsoft and Windows Server are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. This case study is for informational purposes only. DELL MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS CASE STUDY. Reference number: 10008692

View all Dell case studies at: dell.com/casestudies