ANIMATING THE INFRASTRUCTUREVetor Zero increases production by 30%, eliminates bottlenecks and improves quality with Dell workstations, servers, storage, monitors and switches

CUSToMER PRoFILE CoUNTRY: Brazil INDUSTRY: Arts, Entertainment and MediaFoUNDED: 1989TEAM MEMBERS: 120 WEB ADDRESS: www.vetorzero.com.br

CHALLENGE Vetor Zero’s workstations for processing and animating 3D images routinely broke down, causing delays in production, while lack of storage created production bottlenecks. The company wanted to partner with a quality vendor that could meet all of its hardware needs.

SoLUTIoN Today team members use Dell Precision™ workstations, Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers, EMC storage, Dell UltraSharp™ monitors and Dell PowerConnect™ switches. Dell ProSupport responds within four hours.

BENEFITSRUN IT BETTER•30%increaseinproduction•Twofoldincreaseinayear’s

work output, with higher quality in fewer hours

•15to20-minutedelaywhileopening an application reduced to seconds

•Threefoldincreaseinnumberofconcurrent users of an image

•Projectedabilitytoincreaseoutput threefold without adding systems

GRoW IT SMARTER•Twicethespaceefficiency(90systemsinthespaceof35-40old systems)

•Potential30%savingsin infrastructure, power and cooling costs for workstations•60%reductionin phone bill

SoLUTIoNS• Backup/RecoveRy/aRchiving• consolidation• poweR & cooling

Despite its growth in production, the company often encountered problems with its generic “white box” workstation infrastructure when animating and rendering 3D images. This environment had a high cost of maintenance without adequate local support. At least once or twice a week a machine would break down, bringing work to a standstill.

“The purchases made in the past ended up generating excessive costs, stress and lowering the productivity of teams and the company itself,” says André Sernaglia Cerdeira, general coordinator, manager of production and coordinator for technology of Vetor Zero. “Anything could go wrong with our machines. We had problems with memory, hard drive and power supply, and we never knew whether machines and parts would be available in stores.”

The situation became a crisis a little more than a year ago, when Vetor Zero grew to full capacity in terms of the

number of machines and team members it could support. More machines broke down and the company had no more workstations to fall back upon because all were at full capacity. “We decided to get a new solution that would be more responsive, scalable, available and reliable,” says Cerdeira. “We wanted to partner with a single vendor which could meet all of our hardware needs withquality,cutting-edgetechnologyand a single point of contact.”

30% iMpRoveMent in PRoDUCTIoNVetor Zero had already bought new Dell servers for its accounting department as well as two new Dell workstations. During the peak of its problems with the white box machines, Dell equipment never broke down. The company looked at HP workstations but with one good experience already with Dell and observing Dell’s responsive support, customer assistance, speed of delivery and cost, Vetor Zero decided in favor of Dell. The company

“ IN THE FIRST MoNTH WITH DELL woRkstations, WE NoTICED A 30 PERCENT iMpRoveMent in PRoDUCTIoN.”

The world of Vetor Zero is a carnival of the imagination, where caterpillars burst into butterflies, dragons appear out of nowhere, music explodes into visual patterns and life consists of energy. Based in São Paulo, Brazil, with an additional studio in New York City, Vetor Zero is the largest producer of animation in Latin America, and its work has won top global advertising awards for clients such as Volkswagen, GM, Coca Cola and Unilever.

how it woRks

HARDWARE•DellPrecision™390workstationwithIntel®Core™2Duoprocessor

•DellPrecisionT5400workstationwith Intel Xeon® processor

•DellPrecisionR5400workstationwith Intel Xeon processor

•Dell™PowerEdge™1950serverwith Intel Xeon processors

•DellPowerEdgeR200serverwithIntel Xeon processor

•Dell/EMCCelerraNS20•DellPowerConnect6248Ethernet

Switch•DellUltraSharp2407WFP24-inchand1707FPV17-inchLCDscreens

SoFTWARE•Autodesk®Maya®Software

seRvices•DellProSupport

André Sernaglia Cerdeira, general coordinator, manager of production and coordinator for technology, Vetor Zero

purchased ten Dell Precision 390 workstations with Intel Core 2 Duo processors and two gigabytes of RAM.

“InthefirstmonthwithDellworkstations, we noticed a 30 percent improvement in production,” says Cerdeira. “Workers who had been very frustrated were now happy. Instead of being without work for up to eight hours,theyhadamuchmoreefficientwork schedule, and were able to meet deadlines with less overtime. In fact, inthefirstyear,ittookfewerhourstoproduce nearly double the work. The quality of work improved as well.”

no MoRe Bottlenecks Now a year later the company has purchased 10 more Precision 390 workstationsand50DellPrecisionT5400workstationswithIntelXeonprocessors.ThirtyDellPowerEdge1950serverswithdualIntelXeonprocessorsfunction as a rendering farm.

“Dell helped us improve our performance,” says Cerdeira. “Before, workers would come in the morning, doubleclick on the Autodesk Maya software icon—one of our primary tools—andgoouttohavecoffee.In15

or 20 minutes, they would come back and the software was still in the process of opening! Nowadays, we doubleclick and poof, the program is open in front of you.”

Teamwork is also much easier, Cerdeira adds, thanks to the new storage architecture that Dell suggested. “We were going to import a storage system directly from another vendor in the United States, but because of the service we were getting from Dell, we asked them to propose a storage solution for our budget.”

The Dell team suggested that images should be stored centrally on a Dell/EMC Celerra NS20 storage system instead of on individual servers. “The bottleneck is gone,” Cerdeira reports.

“The Dell solution has tripled our capacity. Now 120 users can access the same image at the same time withoutproblems.Before,30to40users trying to do that would bring the system to a halt.”

The solution includes six Dell PowerConnect6248EthernetSwitchestodeliversignificantrackdensityandadvanced core switching capabilities.

And the Dell PowerEdge servers, in a 1U form factor, provide better performance than the previous servers in less than half the rack space. Now, 90 serversfitwhere34to40didbefore.

PoTENTIAL THREEFoLD INCREASE IN PRoDUCTIoNIn addition to workstations, servers, storage and switches, Vetor Zero uses more than 70 UltraSharp Widescreen FlatPanelmonitorsfromDell,in24-and17-inchsizes.

“Dell provides the resolution needed for dual monitors, which we use with both the390andT5400workstations,”saysCerdeira. “With our old workstations, we would lose image quality with dual-monitorsorhavetochangethegraphics card.”

With so much technology purchased in one year, Cerdeira was prepared for mishaps, but problems have been minimal.DellProSupportwith24/7four-hourresponsehasmadeall the difference.

“We had one or two problems with a hard disk and monitor. Dell solved them withinthefour-hourwindow,”Cerdeira

“ THE DELL SoLUTIoN HAS TRIPLED oUR CAPACITY. NoW 120 USERS CAN ACCESS THE SAME IMAGE AT THE SAME TIME WITHoUT PRoBLEMS. BefoRe, 30 to 40 USERS TRYING To Do THAT WoULD BRING THE SYSTEM To A HALT.”André Sernaglia Cerdeira, general coordinator, manager of production and coordinator for technology, Vetor Zero

SIMPlIfy yoUR ToTAl SolUTIoN AT DEll.CoM/Simplify

says. “That’s such an improvement compared to what we had before Dell, that I cannot measure it. We now have the infrastructure we need to grow.”

Cerdeira estimates that without increasing Vetor Zero’s hardware, production could expand by a factor of three merely by hiring more team members. “What we have here is an improvement in the creativity level of our workers,” he says. “Now, we can dedicate our energy exclusively to the technical improvement of the finishedproduct.”

pRoJected 30% savings in poweR, cooling and FLooRSPACEIn the past few months, the company has been experimenting with Dell PrecisionR5400workstationswithIntelXeonprocessors.Anewconceptin desktop computing, the CPU for the workstation resides in the server rack. on the desks there are only a monitor, keyboard, mouse and a small remote access device, about the size of a cable modem.

“I believe in the future all desktops will be like this, in a rack far away from the individual work spaces,” says Cerdeira. “Rightnow,we’rethefirstcompanyin latin America to be using this equipment. If we had had the option ofusingitwhenwefirstmovedintothe space we’re in now, we could have saved 30 percent in power, cooling and workspace.”

60% saving in phone BillEven the phones run on Dell hardware at Vetor Zero. A Dell PowerEdge R200 hoststhecompany’sL5Networks®CallBoxSystem®VoiceoverIPphonesystem,whichissavingthecompany60percent on its phone bill. “Wherever we use our Dell equipment—and we use it throughout the company—we lower TCo, increase output and work better. That’s why we will continue to partner with Dell in the future,” Cerdeira concludes.

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