* BET dumps Sun, adopts Dell, Microsoft
Navarrow Wright’s IT budget was constrained, as was his IT staffers’ time. Wright, CTO for BET (Black Entertainment Television) Interactive, which hosts the BET.com Web site, was faced with refreshing his content management system. He had been using Vignette’s content software, but when he found out that Vignette was overhauling its system, he decided to look for something else.
Wright ran his Web, application and database servers on Sun Solaris machines and the cost of those systems was eating up his budget and the resources of his IT staff.
“We had two issues – the content management system we were using wasn’t going to work going forward, so we had to change that and at the same time we had the issue of the high cost of maintaining the infrastructure which ran on Sun Solaris machines,” Wright says.
Wright went looking for servers, an operating system and a new content management system that would solve his needs and save money in the process. He looked at systems from HP and Dell.
Wright chose Dell PowerEdge servers running Microsoft Windows and Dell PowerVault storage to equip his shop. He replaced 45 to 50 Sun servers with some 30 Dell servers and after installing the new equipment, he had enough money left over to buy new desktop and laptop machines for his users.
He says: “When you go from spending $60,000 to $70,000 a box from Sun to spending $8,000 to $15,000 for a faster box from Dell, it’s really hard to argue with those numbers.”
Wright adds: “We were saving so much money that I found I could migrate my internal desktops and laptops to Dell as well. We literally made a company-wide migration to Dell and Microsoft.”
Replacing his Vignette content management system with Microsoft’s Content Management Server also brought benefits to Wright.
“I wanted to move to a platform that is more open and much more current on technology,” says Wright. “My developers were happy because now [with Microsoft Content Management Server], I have given them marketable skills again. They can program to .Net instead of to a proprietary interface.”
The challenge to Wright was moving the operating system, servers and Web content to the new platform without disrupting everyday business. He estimated that the migration, which began in July 2004, would be finished by the end of that year, but he was able to completely relaunch the site by the end of September 2004.
Since that time, Wright has seen a 30% performance increase for the BET.com site and a 50% savings in his cost to scale.
He says there are additional unexpected benefits of moving from Sun to Dell and Microsoft.
“From an administration standpoint it is incredibly easier for me to find competent admin resources,” says Wright. “With Sun Solaris, it was difficult to find admins because administering Solaris is cryptic and difficult.”
