EMC Announces "Leaders of the Modern Data Center" Award Winners at EMC World 2016

LAS VEGAS, May 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- EMC World

News Highlights:

• EMC announced six recipients of the first-ever "EMC Leaders of the Modern Data Center" award
• Awards celebrate customers who are thought leaders in modernizing their data centers and transforming their businesses
• Winners include Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Etisalat MISR, Callaway Golf, Lightstorm Entertainment, Verizon Labs and The University of North Texas System Information Technology Shared Services

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EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC) today announced the recipients of the first-ever EMC Leaders of the Modern Data Center award. A senior panel of EMC Leaders of the Modern Data Center award judges reviewed all nominations against a wide range of criteria, including the impact of IT and business transformation from the deployment of EMC's strategic technologies and services.  The awards recognize forward-thinking customers who are leveraging key EMC technology pillars driving today's protected and trusted modern data center– flash, software-defined, scale-out and cloud-enabled– building Cloud and Big Data solutions to transform their businesses.

According to a recent survey¹, 52% of the 4,000 business leaders surveyed across 15 countries say they have experienced significant disruption in their industries over the last three years as a result of digital technologies. The imperative to become a digital, or "modern business", is leading to more than 66% of businesses planning to invest heavily in their IT infrastructure and digital skills to create a business that agile, efficient and able to move quickly. Today's awards recipients are stand-out examples of companies having great success along this journey.

And the Winners are ….. 

• Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center (accepted by Dee Emon, CIO and Chad Eckes, EVP and CFO).  In order to standardize, consolidate and converge technologies to simplify its IT environment, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center deployed three VCE® Vblock® Systems, models 720, 540 and 340, to power its software-defined data center it affectionately calls "Wake Cloud." The converged infrastructure enhances the medical center's patient care and advances medical research by supporting more than 750 applications including their EPIC electronic medical records platform. In a business where five minutes of downtime is unacceptable, the VCE-powered Wake Cloud delivers nearly 100 percent availability, up from 87 percent.
• Etisalat MISR (accepted by Khalid Al Mansouri, CIO). In order to innovate and offer new B2B services as quickly as possible, Etisalat MISR, the Egyptian subsidiary of leading telecom company Etisalat Group, turned to EMC to transform its cloud and ITaaS. Etisalat MISR is leveraging a number of EMC® technologies, including EMC Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud™, EMC ViPR® Controller, EMC VPLEX® and all-flash EMC XtremIO® and EMC VNX® arrays to simplify and speed transition to a software-defined data center and fast-track the company's hybrid cloud deployment and IaaS/STaaS. As a result, Etisalat MISR has significantly reduced its IT infrastructure and footprint costs while accelerating average application performance by 300 percent.
• Callaway Golf (accepted by Sai Koorapati, Vice President, Global Information Technology). Having the best technology is critical to a company like golf equipment manufacturer Callaway Golf, which needs to not only understand the individual needs of each customer, but have the capability to deliver a golf club within 24 hours of a custom fitting experience – a key differentiator. Callaway Golf deployed EMC XtremIO on their SAP environment and EMC VNX, EMC Data Domain® and EMC Avamar® to enable their business to accelerate innovation and achieve global growth. Callaway's sales, marketing and operations teams have greatly benefitted from these technologies – it used to take at least five days to process and ship a golf club to a customer, but today, thanks to performance gains enabled by EMC technology, new clubs can be designed, built and shipped the day after an order is received.
• Lightstorm Entertainment (accepted by Jon Landau, Producer/COO/Partner and Tim Bicio, CTO). Film production company Lightstorm Entertainment – creators of the world cinema blockbuster Avatar movie – has been able to modernize the film industry with the help of unique and powerful digital technologies such as EMC's Isilon® scale-out NAS storage system. Lightstorm deployed a 5PB+ Isilon Data Lake that allows them to be agile with an international team (editing, graphic design), resulting in lightning-fast movie production. It has also enabled a dramatic increase in production quality.  Technology advancements with Isilon has enabled Lightstorm to create more advanced, life-like CGI.
• Verizon Labs (accepted by Larry Rau, Director of Architecture and Infrastructure and Charu Rudrakshi, Technology Fellow). Verizon Labs needed to create a new platform to quickly develop innovative products across the company's wireless, wireline, IP and cloud networks and platforms. In response, Verizon Labs deployed EMC's software-defined storage technology, including EMC ECS™ and EMC ScaleIO®. These web scale technologies serve as the backbone of Verizon Labs' cloud platform, which will be used to drive new services, including Verizon's SDN initiative.
• The University of North Texas System Information Technology Shared Services (accepted by Rama Dhuwaraha, Associate Vice Chancellor & CIO). The consumerization of IT has made it more important than ever for The University of North Texas System (UNTS) to modernize their data center and redefine IT in higher education. In order to break down IT silos and improve the day-to-day business on campuses for students and faculty, UNT System adopted EMC's Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution. As a result, UNT System has been able to deliver applications and infrastructure as a service at a faster pace, offering the university community an unparalleled experience and also achieving 33 percent cost savings, which are now being reinvested in the UNT System Key IT Initiatives.

EMC EXECUTIVE QUOTES

Nina Hargus, Chief Marketing Officer, EMC

"The recipients of the first-ever EMC Leaders of the Modern Data Center award have demonstrated an innate ability to identify and take advantage of the technology trends that are driving businesses forward.  We look forward to continuing the journey with them toward a modern data center, the backbone of any digitally transformed business."

ABOUT EMC

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

EMC, Avamar, Data Domain, ECS, Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, Isilon, ScaleIO, Vblock, VCE, ViPR, VMAX, VNX, VPLEX, and XtremIO are trademarks or registered trademarks of EMC Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks used are the property of their respective owners.

¹ Vanson Bourne survey of 4,000 business leaders across 15 countries from mid-size to large enterprises in 12 industries titled, "EMC Digital Business". Respondents were selected according to job function (from business owners to decision-makers in marketing, customer service, R&D and finance). The full research will be released in Summer of 2016.

SOURCE EMC Corporation

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