Solving IT Problems With Server Consolidation

By Dell Inc.

By consolidating its infrastructure on virtualized Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers, Japanese herbal medicine leader Tsumura & Company has laid the groundwork for a dramatic reduction in ongoing server costs while ensuring that legacy applications can continue running years into the future.

With its motto of "The Best of Nature and Science," Tsumura & Company aspires to contribute to human health and well-being by fusing Western medicine with a scientifically grounded understanding of kampo, Japan's traditional herbal medicines. In addition to its 129 kampo products, Tsumura provides 136 varieties of healing medicines and makes significant on-site contributions at a wide variety of medical facilities.

Tsumura has long been committed to advanced technology initiatives, but its relentless focus on IT had led to a problem: an explosion in the number of in-house systems, particularly servers. "Even as we continue to introduce more and more servers," says Hideo Sato, head of the Tsumura IT department, "one by one our existing servers are approaching the end of their lives, and the effort and cost needed to update our in-house systems keeps on growing. In this environment I find myself constantly wishing I could bite down and put a stop to things."