Select Comfort

Background

Select Comfort

March 2003

Select Comfort is one of the biggest success stories in the history of sleep. The popularity of the company's patented SLEEP NUMBER beds have made Select Comfort the number-one bedding retailer in the United States for the last three years. To manage the company's current 20 percent annual growth rate, Select Comfort recently streamlined its server and storage infrastructure, standardizing on Dell PowerEdge servers and installing a Dell/EMC storage area network (SAN). The new server/storage infrastructure gives Select Comfort more performance and storage for mission-critical customer-facing applications, while helping to improve availability and reduce costs.

Challenge

The challenge for Select Comfort was to consolidate server and storage infrastructure to lower costs and simplify procurement and administration. Select Comfort also needed to expand storage to improve the performance of key customer-facing applications.

Solutions

Select Comfort's Dell solution standardizing on Dell PowerEdge servers for all Microsoft Windows 2000-based servers and install a scalable Dell/EMC storage area network (SAN), initially sized at 1.4 TB of disk with an additional 2 terabytes of storage projected for 2003.

Results

Dell servers have not only improved the performance but also the availability of Select Comfort's mission-critical customer application systems. The company sleeps better knowing its crown jewels- customer goodwill and exceptional customer service- are resting securely on rock-solid Dell servers. As for the initial objective of saving money, Select Comfort estimates it is saving significant dollars per year by consolidating its server business with Dell. Select Comfort hopes to continue its steady growth rate into the foreseeable future. Its Dell server/storage infrastructure will not only absorb the growth but also help enable the company to improve its customer service and responsiveness.

March 2003