Global Leader in CRM, Direct Response Marketing and Database Management Chooses Hitachi Storage for Failover, Nonstop Performance, and Superb Support
8th May 2000 — Highlighting the performance and reliability of its Freedom Storage™ solutions, Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE: HIT), today announced the successful installation and operation of its Freedom Storage™ 7700E at the Dallas, Texas, technology center of Rapp Collins Worldwide, a part of Omnicom Group, Inc. (NYSE: OMC). Rapp Collins selected Hitachi Data Systems over leading contenders for its ability to provide storage with high reliability, availability, and scalability, as well as its reputation for outstanding customer service.
The Freedom Storage 7700E delivers leading-edge performance and provides Rapp Collins with extensive connectivity options, highly scalable capacity, fault-tolerant availability 24-hours a day, seven days a week, and a full complement of industry-leading copy software to support business continuity, database backup, application testing, and data mining.
According to John Jastrem, chairman and chief executive officer of Rapp Collins-Dallas, the Dallas office employs more than 400 people and is home to the Marketing Technology Group, which provides the technology backbone for Rapp Collins North America. The Group supports blue-chip clients such as SBC Communications, Dell Computer, J.C. Penney, Sony Entertainment Corporation of America (for Sony PlayStation), and Hyatt Hotels.
"We rely on our state-of-the-art technology to deliver world-class service for our clients," Jastrem said. "Our technological capabilities enable us to not only meet our clients' needs today, but also continue to pioneer new marketing solutions for the future, many of which involve the Internet. The adoption of Internet technologies for exchanging information has created a data explosion worldwide. To meet these requirements we need the most reliable solution to maintain the integrity of our information and serve it quickly and efficiently to our customers worldwide."
As the leader in customer relationship marketing, Rapp Collins required a storage system that could handle the extensive databases employed for list maintenance, batch functions, analytics and business intelligence, Internet-based communications including email, printing and mailing for its clients around the world.
According to Tim Hill, project lead for mainframe systems at Rapp Collins, Hitachi Data Systems won the business on the basis of both technical and customer service issues. Hitachi Data Systems was the only vendor to respond to Rapp Collins' request for a demonstration of storage subsystem capabilities in a product-testing environment.
"Hitachi Data Systems proved their system could more than handle our needs," Hill said. "The Hitachi representative and SEs didn't flinch. They let me pull the power, pull channel interface cards, and test each piece. The reaction of the SEs was always very confident, even if I was asking them to test something they had never done before."
Failover, nonstop performance, mainframe and open systems support, and the ability to migrate data from the old system without downtime were among the key issues the technical evaluation committee at Rapp Collins identified for the new storage system.
"Failover was a huge issue," Hill said. "Our systems have to be up 24/7 so clients can access data. They won't accept disk failure or data loss. We have to be able to protect our clients from loss of data caused by any number of events."
With its new 7700E installed, Hill and his team transferred one terabyte of data from the old system in one weekend-while the data was still online. In addition, all functions of the 7700E, including maintenance, were operational while data was being migrated. Hill said, "In my mind, the 7700E nearly paid for itself right there."
Another key issue for Rapp Collins involved using just one unit to connect mainframe, NT and DEC servers. They wanted to avoid purchasing additional technology for each system, Hill said. Today, the 7700E is connected to MVS, VSE and VM mainframes, NT servers, and a DEC Alpha Unix system with fiber connections to move data to new offices in another section of Dallas. In addition, Rapp Collins recently added 200 GB and an additional SCSI connection to support a client's high availability needs.
Finally, Rapp Collins needed a vendor who could provide expertise in mainframes, remote maintenance, effective disk management tools, competitive performance and pricing, and a history of innovation and advancement. Hill said Hitachi fit the description and is pleased with his decision to purchase the 7700E. "We really haven't had any problems," he said. "The system has performed just like Hitachi promised."
Committed to helping customers exploit the value of information technology for success in the Internet economy, Hitachi Data Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (NYSE:HIT), is a leading provider of business solutions for the world's most information-intensive corporations. For further information on Hitachi Data Systems, access www.hds.com.
Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, is one of the world's leading global electronics companies, with fiscal 1998 (ended March 31, 1999) consolidated sales of 7,977 billion yen ($65.9 billion). The company manufactures and markets a wide range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power and industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd., please visit Hitachi's Web site at http://www.hitachi.co.jp.
¹ At an exchange rate of 124 yen to the dollar.
Rapp Collins Worldwide (http://www.rappcollins.com/) is a global leader in marketing services and customer relationship management. RCW, part of Omnicom Group Inc., has over 2,800 professionals providing integrated marketing services from 60 offices across 30 countries, and reported 1999 capitalized billings in excess of $2.13 billion. Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE - OMC) (http://www.omnicomgroup.com/), the leading marketing communications company in the world, consists of advertising agency networks BBDO Worldwide, DDB Worldwide and TBWA Worldwide. The group also includes Goodby, Silverstein & Partners; Diversified Agency Services (DAS), which operates a number of leading, independently branded companies in marketing services and specialty communications; Omnicom Media Group, which includes two leading international media buying and planning agencies, OMD and PhD; and Communicade, which manages significant investments in leading Internet and digital media development companies.
Contacts: PR
Hitachi Data Systems is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark.
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