Doubling down on a new Customer profile data center WMS Gaming equips new facility with 40GbE Active Fabric and next Company WMS Gaming generation storage, improving application performance and reliability Industry Sports and Gaming while saving six figures Country United States Employees 1,750 Web wms.com

Business Need WMS Gaming needed to design and configure a new data center for efficiency, performance and scalability. Network throughput was a key consideration for the global company.

Solution WMS selected an end-to-end solution including Dell™ Networking switches, ™ Storage Center SANs, Dell EqualLogic™ storage solutions, and engineering assistance from Dell Services.

Benefits • Network and storage bottlenecks removed, improving application performance • Projected 50 percent 3-year reduction in TCO for network, saving six figures • Two helpdesk FTEs repurposed to more strategic roles • 50 percent reduction in recovery time after eliminating tape • 100 percent payback in about a year for replacing tape with “We’ve been able to make a significant disk-based backup difference, aided by Dell. They have been Solutions Featured a strategic partner in helping us mature • Data Center Virtualization • Database infrastructure and operations across • Desktop Computing the board.” • Mobile Computing • Networking Trina Gizel, Executive Director, Global Infrastructure, WMS Gaming • Storage

Services • Configuration Services • Dell IT Planning and Consulting Services From pinball to arcade videogames to casino gaming, Chicago- based WMS Gaming (WMS) has been helping people have fun for decades. Today, the company is an innovator in the fast-growing online gaming market, as well as a leading supplier of gaming products and enabling technologies to casinos worldwide.

The company’s portfolio includes many popular games, including Reel ‘em In!®, Technology at work Life of Luxury®, Zeus™ and Jackpot Party® themes, as well as licensed titles such as Services ™ ™ MONOPOLY , THE WIZARD OF OZ , THE Configuration Services LORD OF THE RINGS™, CLUE™ and THE ™ ™ PRICE IS RIGHT™ themes. Dell Compellent Copilot Support “We reduced Dell Enterprise Service Desk When the company’s existing data center Dell IT Planning and Consulting Services our three-year facilities could no longer scale to support business growth, WMS saw a greenfield Dell Support Services networking total - Dell ProSupport™ Mission Critical opportunity to build a new converged with four hour onsite response cost of ownership data center using technologies that Hardware for the new data would improve performance, increase efficiency and reduce total cost of Dell Compellent Storage Center SANs ownership (TCO) for IT. The new facility center by about Dell EqualLogic™ PS6010 and would support legacy and emerging PS6510 iSCSI SANs 50 percent using a applications, including Oracle E-Business Suite modules and a VMware vSphere Dell XPS Dell Active Fabric virtual server environment. ™ E6420 laptops solution. We save in Z9000 10/40GbE Life in the fast lane switches the mid-to-high six “It made sense for us to build from Dell Networking S4810 top-of- scratch instead of taking a Band-Aid rack 1/10/40GbE switches figures compared approach,” says Trina Gizel, executive to a Cisco solution.” director, global infrastructure. “We Dell Networking S55 switches serve 1,750 users on six continents, Dell Networking C300 chassis- Trina Gizel, Executive Director, and we needed a network and storage based switches (for headquarters) Global Infrastructure, infrastructure that would take any Dell OptiPlex™ 790 Mini Tower, WMS Gaming performance issues off the table. It 790 ultra small form factor also had to scale to support 10 percent desktop PCs annual growth for the next 10 years, ™ M4600, M6600 because gaming is expanding worldwide, mobile workstations and we’re growing fast.” WMS had used Cisco networking Dell Compellent Data Instant Replay components for years, and Gizel initially Dell Compellent Data Progression intended to do the same for the new Dell Compellent Dynamic Capacity data center. “At the time, Cisco was experiencing some supply chain difficulties Dell Compellent Enterprise Manager that led us to look at other options,” she ActiveRoles Server says. “Our Dell rep suggested we look at Oracle® 11g database (11.2.0.3) Dell Networking switches.” VMware® vSphere™ 4.1 Gizel and her team were keen on what Windows® 7 they saw. “We liked that certain models Windows Server® 2008 R2 of Dell Networking switches have wire

2 speed to every port,” she says. “We’ve had about 50 percent using a Dell Active significant port density challenges in the Fabric solution, counting lower hardware past, because we isolate our VoIP traffic. and maintenance costs. We save in the So we use a lot of chassis switches, and mid-to-high six figures compared to a we needed Power over Ethernet (PoE). At Cisco solution.” the time, several vendors did not make PoE blades for their chassis switches. We iSCSI SAN storage speed also had an established knowledge base WMS also wanted to move away from around the Cisco , and maintaining a separate we liked the fact that Dell Networking was infrastructure for its not vastly different. Our engineers would (SAN), and looked for a storage solution be able to make the transition quickly.” that was iSCSI-capable. “We evaluated four storage vendors,” says Gizel. “We Reducing networking TCO by went through a very thorough analysis 50 percent that included a double-weighted matrix Designing the optimal network of the technologies across 12 categories “My entire team architecture was critical, and Dell IT such as expandability, redundancy and Consulting Services provided needed reporting. Across the board, when we felt that Dell was assistance. “Many meetings took place looked at all the factors and added in extremely helpful in to determine the proper design,” says the strength of our business relationship Gizel. “My entire team felt that Dell with Dell, it was a very easy decision to enabling us to design was extremely helpful in enabling us go with Dell Compellent Storage Center to design the best solution for the SANs. We deployed one Dell Compellent the best solution applications from a performance SAN for Oracle, and another to support for the applications perspective, as well as a solution that our new VMware environment.” would scale down the road.” from a performance WMS has virtualized 80 percent of its Ultimately, WMS decided to deploy a “leaf/ 700 servers. Virtualized applications perspective, as well spine”-based Active Fabric architecture include Microsoft SharePoint, Windows as a solution that using Dell Networking Z9000 fabric print services, SAP Business Objects, switches as the 40 Gigabit Ethernet spine, Microsoft Lync and Kronos. Says Gizel: would scale down and Dell Networking S4810 switches as “Dell Compellent’s ability to leverage 10 Gigabit leaf nodes. For management/ large amounts of spindles gives VMware the road.” auxiliary nodes, the company chose Dell excellent throughput.” Trina Gizel, Executive Director, Networking S55 switches. Global Infrastructure, Storage tiering accelerates responses WMS Gaming The Active Fabric design offers both To optimize application performance, scalability and high performance. It WMS uses Dell Compellent Data flattens the traditional data center Progression software to automatically network architecture using high-density move the most frequently used data and low-latency, fixed-form factor to high performance drives and less 10/40GbE switches that can be deployed frequently used data to high capacity quickly and easily, compared to traditional drives, all without manual intervention. chassis-based network designs. “We’ll be using Data Progression a lot Reduced TCO was an important more in the future, because right now we benefit. “We determined that there have a lot of data pinned to Tier 1 drives would be significant cost savings with intentionally,” says Gizel. “As data ages Dell Networking, not just from an initial and is accessed less frequently, it will per-port cost, but also in support costs automatically be moved to lower storage thereafter,” she says. “We reduced our tiers without anyone on our team having three-year networking total cost of to be involved. Data Progression suits ownership for the new data center by Oracle’s performance needs very well.”

3 Application performance improved For local storage at remote office locations, and Dell Latitude laptops, Dell Precision immediately when the new data center the company uses Dell EqualLogic iSCSI mobile workstations and Dell OptiPlex went live. “Previously we had some SANs. “We like Dell EqualLogic SANs desktop PCs running for their performance issues, because the fiber because they are very easy to deploy and daily work. A managed helpdesk solution forced us to have our storage farther administer,” says Gizel. “We have dozens of from Dell provides end-user support. away from the front-end host,” says Gizel. them. They’re a natural for our distributed “Our converged network has solved locations because we team up CommVault “We’ve been able to repurpose two that problem. We’ve taken network and Simpana replication capabilities with them full-time employees to other very storage bottlenecks out of the equation. to ease our nightly backup requirements. productive roles in our IT organization Performance is just no longer an issue We’re replicating all over the globe.” because we outsourced our helpdesk to in our world, and that was not the case Dell,” says Gizel. “Our users get 24x7x365 two years ago.” Scaling the EqualLogic environment local language support, which we didn’t is also very easy, Gizel adds. “Dell have before—and that’s really essential More time for innovation EqualLogic has replaced our tape backup for a global business such as ours.” Ease of use and fast access to infrastructure. We back up hundreds of information about system health and terabytes to EqualLogic and replicate For support in the data center, WMS configuration were also goals for the them to other locations for continuity. contracts with Dell ProSupport and new data center. “The ease of Dell Payback on this project was in little over Dell Copilot Support. Compellent Replays was a big part of a year. We eliminated tape loaders, tape why we picked Dell Compellent over costs, staff time, and offsite tape storage Earning business by solving problems some of the other solutions—both the services. And we’ve reduced recovery Gizel appreciates Dell’s “solutions first, speed at which they occur and how they time by more than 50 percent.” sales later” approach, even for solutions are administered and managed,” says WMS did not traditionally purchase Gizel. “It’s also been very easy to add The net effect of simplified management through Dell, such as VMware. “I liked the disks and to administer compared to our is more time for the IT team to innovate fact that Dell asked what our problems former SAN.” and offer new services to the business. were first, and then followed up with The underlying technologies will help, suggestions about how to solve them,” she Gizel’s team uses Dell Compellent too—for example, operations staff says. “Sometimes that led to additional Enterprise Manager software to gain can now clone database instances business for Dell, and sometimes it didn’t. valuable insights into storage utilization for developers on demand using For example, Dell would absolutely and data placement. “Our previous Tier 1 Dell Compellent Data Instant Replay, help my technical staff solve VMware SAN was somewhat of a ‘black box,’” says potentially accelerating development problems. When it came time to renew Gizel. “It didn’t give us a lot of visibility cycles and improving quality assurance. some VMware licenses, I decided to shift into which tier data was on, or where the that business to Dell because they were hot spots were. We had to contact the Reclaiming two FTEs while improving really where the value-add was. We’ve vendor, who ran a proprietary program user support been able to make a significant difference, against our SAN remotely, and then a day WMS also uses Dell solutions outside the aided by Dell. They have been a strategic or two later came back to us with a heat data center, including Dell Networking partner in helping us mature infrastructure map of where our data sat on what drives. S50V switches supporting casino feeds and and operations across the board.” That information is now at our fingertips, Dell Networking C300 chassis switches and we can very easily see where our supporting core and end-user connectivity data sits.” at headquarters. Users depend on Dell XPS

View all Dell case studies at dell.com/casestudies

Availability and terms of Dell Services vary by region. For more information, visit: dell.com/servicedescriptions. 4 © May 2013, Dell Inc. Microsoft, Lync, SharePoint, Windows and Windows Server are registered 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: 10011465