Customer Case Study
R.L. Polk
8/12/2009
Auto Data Firm Virtualizes Servers to Trim Time-to-Market, Cut Costs by $300,000
R.L. Polk provides marketing data and services to the auto industry in the form of subscription-based software applications hosted in its data centers. By deploying Windows Server® 2008 with Hyper-V technology, the company was able to eliminate 80 of its physical servers and reduce hardware and management costs by $300,000.
Industry: Professional Services
Size: Large, 1200 employees
Country: US  US

Customer Profile
http://www.polk.com/
R.L. Polk is a leading provider of marketing information to the automotive industry, helping automobile manufacturers and dealers understand what consumers buy and why. Polk has 1,200 employees.
Business Situation
R.L. Polk needs to roll out new information services quickly, but the time and cost needed to deploy physical servers was slowing the business and weighing down the bottom line.
Solution
R.L. Polk is using the Windows Server® 2008 operating system with the Hyper-V™ technology to virtualize many of its nearly 1,000 physical servers and Microsoft® System Center software to simplify management.
Benefit
  • Improved business velocity
  • Hardware savings of U.S.$300,000
  • IT staff reduced
  • Improved availability
Software
  • Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007
  • Windows Server 2008 Enterprise
  • Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008
  • Microsoft Hyper-V
Quote
"The only way to contain costs is to take advantage of technology such as virtualization so that you don't have to buy as many servers. We also get much better hardware utilization without impacting performance."
Joe Richards, Director of Infrastructure, R.L. Polk