Lower Costs, Improved Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Emerge as Top Server Optimization Drivers in CDW Poll; CDW Says Virtualization, Blade and Dual-Core Servers Are Reinventing the Data Center

Business Wire, June 14, 2006

VERNON HILLS, Ill. -- CDW Corporation (NASDAQ:CDWC), a leading provider of technology products and services to business, government and education, today released results of a survey that shows reducing costs and improving business continuity and disaster recovery are the top drivers for server optimization, according to a recent CDW poll.

In a survey of 420 IT managers, 66 percent of them said that reducing costs was the key business driver for server optimization, while 56 percent cited improved business continuity/disaster recovery. Server optimization was defined as consolidation and virtualization to maximize utilization rates, reduce power consumption and required data center space while improving application performance and uptime. Such projects are becoming more prevalent as customers realize the benefits of newer technologies like virtualization, blade servers and dual-core servers.

"The survey results mesh with what we see from our customers who realize they can lower their total cost of ownership by running multiple applications on a single physical server instead of buying a separate server for each application," said Firooz Ghanbarzadeh, Senior Segment Manager, Solutions, CDW. "Virtualization, blade and dual-core servers are key server optimization components that are reinventing the data center by creating cost efficiencies and extraordinary levels of flexibility."

One of CDW's customers that is realizing the benefits of server optimization is Batteries Plus, the nation's largest retail battery chain headquartered in Hartland, Wisconsin. Batteries Plus went to CDW to build redundancy into its data center in order to avoid the cost of downtime, which it estimates is $26,000 per hour. CDW met its needs with a new blade center that enables it to replace multiple physical servers with blades that provide a higher level of redundancy at a lower cost.

"CDW's expertise on server optimization has proved invaluable for us," said Josh Moore, IS Director of Operations, Batteries Plus. "The virtualization solution we use is helping us expand our capacity to handle increasing volumes of information in and out of our storage area network. As our e-commerce needs grow, we won't need to buy as many new servers. Instead, we'll be able to reroute processing power as needed, whether for business continuity or for applications we run only part of the time."

As businesses face increased pressure to deliver a growing number of services at the same or lower costs, server optimization can help to manage the data center more efficiently to ensure reliable delivery of IT-based services.

"Server optimization lowers operational expenses because of reduced service needs, lower cooling costs per server, and less demand per server for power, rack space, switching and floor space," said Ghanbarzadeh. "Optimization also reduces the time needed by IT professionals to maintain and manage servers."

As a result, resources previously dedicated to taking care of servers can be redeployed.

"Cost savings generated from having an optimized data center can be invested in other areas," said Andrew Loughlin, manager, CDW Storage Specialists. "In appropriate situations, we advise organizations to use the savings to add storage area networking (SAN) solutions that enhance capabilities to exchange and backup corporate data."

Survey results show that server optimization is no longer only about consolidation as a way to realize cost savings. Sixty-two percent of respondents said optimization is valuable because it drives business-process improvements, and 51 percent said optimization increases application uptime.

Other survey highlights:

--Twenty-six percent of respondents cited virtualization technologies, including virtual partitions, as their primary choices for planned and current server optimization technologies, followed by blade servers (22 percent) and dual-core servers (21 percent)

--Thirty-one percent of respondents ranked server sprawl as a top IT driver for optimization.

--Fifty-three percent of respondents rated the initial investment as the leading obstacle to a server optimization project, although 90 percent rated overall cost savings as an important benefit of server optimization. Forty-one percent of respondents rated time to implement as the second largest obstacle. Thirty-five percent of respondents cited the impact on service during the project/implementation, and 22 percent referenced a lack of experienced, efficient internal resources.

Click here for more information about the survey results: http://newsroom.cdw.com/features/feature-06-14-06.html

CDW's server optimization poll was conducted by Communispace Corp., a market research company that creates online communities for businesses to use for market research.

About CDW

CDW(R) (NASDAQ:CDWC), ranked No. 343 on the FORTUNE 500, is a leading provider of technology products and services for business, government and education. CDW is a principal source of technology from top name brands such as Adobe, Apple, Cisco, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Sony, Symantec and Toshiba.