IBM and Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors, a leading regional home services company in the Northeast, have announced that the realty company replaced HP and Sun technology with IBM servers and storage to support the sales efforts of over 3,000 real estate agents and securely protect the data of thousands of clients. Using IBM blade server technology, the realty company says it expects to lower power and cooling costs by nearly $60,000 annually.

Privately-held Prudential Fox & Roach is the third largest real estate, mortgage and title insurance company in the nation and the top realtor in the Northeast region. The realtor views technology as an important means of attracting and retaining talented agents, who require fast, dynamic tools to update property listings or relay contracts to the office. Leading-edge technology enables Prudential Fox & Roach's agents to complete sales and provide insurance and mortgages to their clients in a cost-effective and efficient manner.

The realty company replaced 93 HP Proliant servers with an IBM BladeCenter solution running VMware virtualization technology to provide a secure disaster recovery solution that will allow for easier data recovery if needed. Coupling the energy efficient design of IBM BladeCenter with virtualization technology also allowed Prudential Fox & Roach to reduce its power and cooling costs by $60,000 a year--a significant savings for the mid-sized realty company.

"The migration to IBM BladeCenter and System Storage will allow us to scale as we continue to grow," said William Friemann, vice president of Operations, Security and Compliance at Prudential Fox & Roach. "Our storage and processing requirements continue to evolve and we needed a solution that would evolve with us as we face new business challenges, which IBM delivered. We can also invest the money we save on power bills back in to the business to fuel growth."

The company is running four BladeCenter H chassis in its central datacenter as well as one BladeCenter S chassis in a separate location to support all of Prudential Fox & Roach's remote real estate offices. Prudential Fox & Roach selected BladeCenter S for its ability to run outside the datacenter on standard 110 volt power, eliminating the need for an expensive power upgrade.

Prudential Fox & Roach also replaced Sun storage equipment with IBM System Storage to securely and centrally manage company assets and client data. IBM Global Technology Services helped the company successfully migrate to its new IBM technology.

About Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors

One of the nation's oldest providers of real estate services, Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors has since 1886 been permanently woven into the fabric of the communities it serves. Whether clients are buying, selling, renting or relocating, Prudential Fox & Roach makes available a team of passionate professionals with solid connections supported by superior marketing technology. The firm is a leading realtor in the region and has a national reputation. Its market preeminence and resources gives Prudential Fox & Roach significant advantages to perform for its clients.

About IBM

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