Dell servers, desktops to power Super Bowl

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By Linda Rosencrance

(IDG) -- As Super Bowl Sunday draws near, Dell Computer Corp. is working behind the scenes with the National Football League to make sure that Super Bowl XXXVI is a technical success.

The computer maker recently said it would be computer systems provider for the February 3 Super Bowl. Dell is setting up an IT infrastructure in New Orleans equivalent to a midsize business, the company said.

The news was part of a 12-month deal in which the New York-based NFL will install Dell servers and storage systems from Dell and Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based EMC Corp.

During the next year, the NFL will purchase 120 Dell 2500 and 2550 PowerEdge servers and Dell/EMC storage systems for its overall communications projects, according to Tom West, director of marketing at Dell's medium business division. Dell and the NFL declined to release the financial terms of the agreement.

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Under the deal, the NFL will install Dell servers and PowerVault 220 storage systems with more than a terabyte of storage in the Louisiana Superdome to help ensure reliable, consistent communications between the league and its teams, he said.

Dell said the NFL deal is the first publicly announced storage win with EMC since October, when Dell signed an agreement to resell EMC's midrange storage products (see "Dell to resell EMC midrange storage products," link below).

Six Dell PowerEdge 6450 servers will crunch thousands of game-day statistics and feed them to the league's two online football sites, NFL.com and Superbowl.com, as well to the league's New York offices, said Dave Port, senior IT director at the NFL. The system will also generate press releases for the media, he said.

"The systems are completely redundant and clustered so they can survive failure and keep operating," Port said.

In addition, 200 Dell Optiplex desktop computers will be used at the NFL nerve center at the Hyatt Regency hotel in New Orleans, where the league relocates its computer operations during the weeks leading up to Super Bowl Sunday.

"Currently, about 40 percent of the equipment is up and running, and the remaining equipment will be set up this weekend or next," said Port.

Port said about 15 people from the NFL's IT department and three Dell IT workers would be on hand to handle any technical issues.