IBM's Shark keeps US Ssenate In safe watersCambridge 20 Oct 2000 EchoMail, a e-mail relationship management (ERM) application service provider to Fortune 500 companies, has bolstered its service offering and dramatically down-sized its hardware needs by integrating a powerful combination of IBM servers featuring the copper-fueled RS/6000 S80 and Shark Enterprise Storage Server.
EchoMail is a provider of outsourced Web-based e-mail communications that allows
its customers who are engaged in e-commerce to more effectivelymanage their customer relationships. With powerful software tools running on IBM's Unix and storage servers, EchoMail is helping companies such as JC Penney, Nike and Calvin Klein, to increase productivity and improve customer service. The service also prevents virus-infected e-mails from entering its customers' inboxes.
The United States Senate, one of EchoMail's largest customers, uses its services to manage the 10.000 to 20.000 e-mails it receives daily. By using EchoMail's service, e-mails are sifted through and automatically delivered to the appropriate United States Senate office for response. It also can delineate, collate and tabulate e-mail responses to provide polling feedback on issues. In effect, this service expedites response time and provides faster feedback to senators on constituent issues.
To improve the speed and delivery of its service, EchoMail recently overhauled its IT systems, as part of a migration strategy which displaced the database and e-mail server functions from Windows NT servers to the RS/6000 servers. The IBM server, attached to the S80, will be used as the central repository to house the business-critical data of its customers. The migration will consolidate the number of Windows NT servers from 100 to about 10, based on the IBM server
consolidation. Both IBM servers were selected for their scalability, reliability and high availability.
"We needed to be able to ensure that our services improve productivity and bottom
line", stated Gene Deans, Database Administrator. "The combined IBMRS/6000 and
Shark Storage servers answered the challenge."
EchoMail also selected IBM because it found in one vendor the ability to provide leading solutions of hardware, software, operating systems andservices. The alternative would have been a solution from four vendors, which Deans described as problematic, especially when technical issues needed to be resolved quickly.
The Shark Enterprise Storage Server is the high performance disk storage solution from IBM. Built on the foundation of IBM's Seascape StorageEnterprise Architecture, Shark works with Windows NT, UNIX, Novell NetWare, the entire IBM eServer family and with a variety of interfaces, including Fibre Channel, Ultra SCSI and ESCON. Shark incorporates IBM unique technology such as Parallel Access Volumes (PAV).
Ad Emmen |
 |