SWC Leverages Dell For Data Center Upgrade

The South Washington County school district – the sixth-largest school district in Minnesota – requires a robust, reliable data center in order to serve about 18,500 students and its entire staff. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the district’s plans to upgrade its data centers were put in jeopardy.

District administrators decided to partner with Dell Technologies Financial Services and signed a two-year lease payment plan. Through this partnership, the district was able to complete its data center modernization project, as well as provide devices to students for remote learning.

“Because of the pandemic, we were concerned that we were not going to be able to go forward with the upgrade for our data centers,” said Alex Hanson, systems administrator for the South Washington County school district.

With an already tight budget, Hanson explained that the school district had to shift all of its plans towards remote learning when the pandemic hit. The district spent every bit of its technology budget on student devices.

“Without Dell Technologies Financial Services’ assistance, we would not have been able to complete this upgrade to our data centers,” Hanson said. “Everything is running much faster and it is a lot more reliable thanks to the VxRail system that we have now in place.”

Dell Technologies’ VxRail system helps customers to accelerate data center modernization efforts because of its simplicity, automated operations, and scalability.

“The cost of this project would have been impossible had we purchased it as a single purchase,” said Robert Berkowitz, the school district’s director of technology.

“We’re very fortunate that our community supports technology. We do take that very seriously and we make sure that we get the most we can for the dollar that positively impacts student learning,” Berkowitz said. “Dell Technologies Financial Services have really helped partner with us to make this year happen.”