EMC Enables State of Michigan Transformation to IT-as-a-Service

EMC Corporation announced that the State of Michigan‘s IT organization is using
EMC storage, software and professional services to transform how IT
services are delivered to agencies and residents.

The State of Michigan has always been responsive to individual agency requests
– but a new IT-as-a-Service (ITaaS) model will enable even better partnership
with agencies to identify their needs and provide service catalogs with defined
rate structures that make it easier for agencies to ‘shop’ for services.

As a
result, EMC is helping the State of Michigan provide greater
responsiveness to the changing needs of its agencies and citizens,
improving the quality of online services for Michigan residents and reducing IT
capital and operational expenditures.

Customer Benefits:

• Performance: The State has increased the performance of its Human Services
  application by 20%, improving service to users while extending the value of its
  storage investments.
• Service Quality: As a result of its
  IT transformation, the State’s IT organization is able to offer a growing array
  of services online, such as motor vehicle registration and child support
  services, providing citizens with a convenient one-stop shopping experience.
• Flexibility: The State is now able
  to partner with agencies to identify their needs and provide service catalogs
  with defined rate structures that make it easier for agencies to shop for
  services with its new ITaaS model.

Customer Challenges and Solution:
Looking to endure the challenging economic conditions in the best
way possible, the State of Michigan’s departments experienced deep budget cuts
and made the difficult decision to reduce its staff through attrition and
retirements despite seeing its IT storage environment grow 25% annually over
the past five years. At the same time, demand for government services was
increasing. The data center resources were overextended, and its IT
staff was spending nearly all of their time on installations and support instead
of developing new services.

To transform the way IT services are delivered and how those IT services
support the state’s agencies, the State created a Virtual Center of Excellence
(VCOE) built on EMC technologies. The VCOE serves more than a dozen agencies
with ITaaS offerings ranging from motor vehicle registration and
driver licensing to unemployment insurance and child support services. By
leveraging EMC technologies and services, the State is achieving
agility in meeting the growing needs of agencies and citizens while improving
quality of new online services for agencies and Michigan residents.

The State standardized on EMC technologies including VMAX storage that is
configured with Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) and
data-at-rest encryption (DARE). It uses EMC RecoverPoint remote data
protection solution for DR as well as Data Domain for backup and recovery.
The virtualization environment includes VMware virtualization and cloud
infrastructure solutions including vSphere server virtualization with vCenter
Site Recovery Manager and vCloud Director, as well as Citrix XenApp. EMC Global
Services was engaged to help implement the virtualized infrastructure and
educate internal customers on VCOE services.

Vern Klassen, director of Technical Services, State of Michigan, said: "We are creating a much more satisfying,
one-stop shopping experience for our citizens. Residents can now renew their
driver’s license, register to vote or even start a new business through the
convenience of a web portal. We’ve eliminated the inconvenience of waiting in
long lines and making multiple trips to different offices.

"Since adopting virtualization
and automation, we don’t need as many server administrators, so we’re shifting
those individuals into more service-oriented, customer-focused roles. We’re
becoming better marketers of our services and operating more like a business,
which is essential to competing with external service providers.

"We’ve developed operating-level
agreements to assure agencies of improved service uptime and faster response to
trouble tickets. A key part of our transformation is driving better metrics
around our services. The agencies more accurately know what to expect and we
are far more accountable."

Rick Hoffman, storage manager, State of Michigan, said: "Because we’ve become more efficient by
virtualizing, consolidating and deploying deduplication, the number of people
to support our systems has remained unchanged even though our storage has grown
by 25% annually over the past five years. With EMC technologies, we are able to
deliver tiered levels of availability and performance that match the
performance and cost requirements from each agency.

"Not only are we meeting the
service demands of our clients, but able to get more horsepower from our
storage investments and ultimately save on long-term expenditures. For example,
EMC’s FAST VP and FAST Cache has increased the performance of our critical
Human Services application by 20%."