Hewlett-Packard Development Company (HP) announced that women's clothing retailer Chico's has chosen HP Performance Optimized Data Center (POD) technology as part of an HP Converged Infrastructure to increase productivity by providing employees at more than 600 boutiques nationwide with access to the company's virtual private cloud.
By creating a scalable private cloud to meet the company's need for expansion, Chico's has improved operational efficiencies while also increasing agility.
Originally, Chico's back-office systems, which support purchasing, clothing design, material sourcing, distribution and financials, were confined within a 1,200-foot data center located in a hurricane-prone area. The company looked to HP for an alternative, innovative data-center solution that would provide a stable, efficient and flexible cloud environment to accommodate growing business needs.
With the installation of two HP PODs – the HP POD 40c and HP POD 20c – Chico's slashed its server count from 600 to 150, reducing operational costs by 75 percent while achieving a 60 percent power savings. HP PODs also enabled Chico's to expand the company's order processing and inventory management operations by 50 percent in less than eight weeks, at less than half the cost of building a traditional brick-and-mortar data center.(1)
Chico's complete, integrated HP Converged Infrastructure solution includes HP ProLiant BL460c G7 server blades, HP ProLiant DL580 G7 servers, HP 5820 switches and HP 3PAR Storage Systems.
"We needed a flexible data-center solution that helped us deliver company resources and information to our associates across the country," said Steven Ross, vice president, Technology, Chico's FAS, Inc. "The ability to quickly deploy new HP PODs and add rack space as needed allows us to provision faster while cutting costs."
HP PODs offer cost and operational efficiencies and support a host of server and desktop virtualization technologies. As a result, Chico's reduced its data-center footprint while offering employees access to online company resources and information.
The HP solution was tailored to Chico's specifications and assembled at the HP POD-Works facility in Houston. HP POD-Works provides complete rack integration, performance validation and testing before a POD is shipped. A more detailed account of Chico's installation of the HP POD can be seen in a video testimonial.
HP's premier client event, HP Discover, takes place June 4-7 in Las Vegas.
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