Zelle Hofmann Efficiently Manages Storage at the Right Price
Overview
Zelle, Hofmann, Voelbel, Mason & Gette LLP is a national dispute resolution and litigation law firm with offices in Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The firm handles complex litigation and disputes on a national and international basis. With nearly 175 employees, Zelle Hofmann's data storage needs are continuously increasing. After years of searching for an affordable storage area network (SAN) that delivered the advanced functionality it required, Zelle Hofmann selected the Compellent Storage Center to meet its growing storage needs.
Situation
When a new case arrives at Zelle Hofmann, the firm's attorneys expect the case-related data to be accessible on the network and ready for research in a short period of time. To accommodate this ever-impending need, Zelle Hofmann over-purchased storage capacity on a routine basis. For its IT staff, storage capacity planning for the future was riddled with guesswork.
During the past eight years, Zelle Hofmann has gone from two to nearly 30 internal servers. A majority of its servers ran only one or two applications, creating significant amounts of unused storage capacity. The manual process of managing all of its servers to avoid storage waste was ineffective and a significant drain on the firm's IT resources.
Solution
Zelle Hofmann evaluated multiple SAN vendors, but none provided an affordable solution for mid- and small-size companies. Seeking alternative solutions, Steve Remington, IT director for Zelle Hofmann, became involved with the Compellent Customer Council (C3) — structured meetings in which Compellent partners and customers provide input on the design and development of Compellent's product and support offerings. According to Remington, Compellent immediately had a clear picture of his firm's storage requirements — from functionality to price point — and delivered a storage solution that exceeded his expectations. Within six weeks of implementing Compellent, Zelle Hofmann was able to reduce its server costs by 20 percent on each new server purchased.
Realizing Return On Investment
Zelle Hofmann recently received 250 data and image-filled CDs for a new case. Previously, the firm would have been forced to purchase new servers with internal storage to accommodate such new cases. The Compellent Storage Center enabled Zelle Hofmann to quickly and easily secure extra storage capacity without procuring additional server hardware. Within a short timeframe, the Compellent Storage Center has delivered significant returns for Zelle Hofmann.
Easily Expanding Storage Capacity
With its former system, Zelle Hofmann was locked into a specific amount of storage space for each server, making expanding capacity a painful task. The Compellent Storage Center provides Zelle Hofmann the ability to reserve capacity for future use, but pay for it only when data is physically stored. The Compellent solution tracks available space and lets the firm know when it needs to add more disks. The Compellent system helps Remington better plan his storage purchases by providing trending information related to how much data is being added and sending him automatic forecasting alerts.
The Compellent Storage Center also allows Remington to continue using his slower, legacy disks. Compellent's Data Prioritization application enables Remington to assign less-accessed data to these slower disks. According to Remington, these are important functions for a smaller firm like Zelle Hofmann with limited budgets.