La-Z-Boy Eases Enterprise Computing with Unisys ES7000

Furniture World Magazine

Furniture retailing giant consolidates workload of 12 distributed servers into one mainframe-class enterprise system running Windows 2000 Datacenter Server and SQL Server 2000. Managing enterprise computing at La-Z-Boy will be easier and more cost effective as a result of a new, centralized computing environment based on the Unisys e-@ction Enterprise Server ES7000 running Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. The Unisys ES7000 at La-Z-Boy is consolidating the work of 12 commodity Windows-based servers. La-Z-Boy will use the ES7000 to run the company's service desk, Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) and systems management software accessing a SQL Server 2000 database, in addition to managing file and print services. The service desk and systems management applications will process asset management data, control information technology (IT) help desk functions and manage a repository of hardware and PCs. Over time, La-Z-Boy plans to upgrade its ES7000 system to add more partitions with direct memory access and data transfer capabilities. Operating as a decentralized company, La-Z-Boy traditionally has provided local information technology support for each of its 17 brands and 10 operating divisions across the United States and in four foreign countries. As the demand for computing capacity increased throughout its organization, La-Z-Boy faced the challenge of handling larger workloads without increasing the administrative complexities and costs of deploying a cluster of new servers. To drive down systems management costs and eliminate the need for additional skilled resources, La-Z-Boy decided to consolidate its core IT management and communication applications onto one, centrally managed Unisys ES7000 server. La-Z-Boy has instituted a lean corporate IT department to oversee the new, restructured enterprise and the ES7000 server. La-Z-Boy selected the Unisys ES7000 server for its advanced capabilities, such as the ability to accommodate up to 32 processors and enable the creation of partitions, or "servers within a server," into which multiple applications can be consolidated. "In keeping up with increasing demands on our IT resources, we wanted to avoid adding server after server to our growing infrastructure," said Gary Clark, director of Corporate IT Services, La-Z-Boy. "We selected the Unisys ES7000 to manage our exploding server growth and to reduce our human capital and administration costs. With its tight Windows 2000 Datacenter Server integration and powerful partitioning abilities, the ES7000 allows us to consolidate intensive workloads and address bandwidth issues that were problems in the past." Unisys will provide a full range of managed support and integration services to help La-Z-Boy meld the ES7000 into its IT infrastructure. La-Z-Boy currently is developing a plan to migrate the workload of its 12 distributed servers to the ES7000 server. "Companies can cut costs substantially and achieve operational efficiency by consolidating the workload of critical, day-to-day functions such as e-mail, Internet usage and file and print functions onto a centrally managed server," said Peter Samson, vice president and general manager, Unisys Technology Sales Development. "The ES7000 offers supreme power and manageability, combined with the ease-of-use and open architecture of the Windows environment. La-Z-Boy is furthering its overall business strategy by adopting the most cost-effective server technology in the industry to manage its growing network." "The ES7000 fits into our long-range expansion strategy of unifying and expediting the shared IT services of our 10 different operating divisions," said Clark. "The high availability and advanced data sharing capabilities of the ES7000 will allow different divisions to share knowledge and execute common goals. By providing redundant connections to data on the ES7000, we expect to conserve resources and lower administrative and operation costs for the enterprise." The Unisys ES7000: Enterprise-class Windows performance powered by CMP The Unisys ES7000 is based on the Unisys Cellular MultiProcessing (CMP) server architecture, which provides an array of computing capabilities required for enterprise-class e-business computing -- capabilities that are well known to users of large-scale computers, but unprecedented in computing environments using Microsoft and Intel technology. The ES7000 was designed for the power of Intel 64-bit Itanium processors. Using CMP's powerful partitioning capabilities, Itanium and Pentium III Xeon processors can run side-by-side within one server. These and other advantages enable CMP-based servers to match the performance of UNIX systems in enterprise-class e-business and other critical applications at a fraction of the price.