Featuring: Xserve and Xserve RAID Solution That Results in Improved Efficiency, Speed and ROI

1. Enable the busy creative department at a Fortune 500 company to store and manage their high resolution photos in-house, making their workflow more efficient and cost effective.
2. Evaluate current workflow to help pinpoint challenges and inefficiencies
3. Bring high resolution photo assets in-house; streamline asset control and creative workflow
4. Upgrade servers to Xserve with Xserve RAID, install software such as HELIOS ImageServer, Cumulus HELIOS Companion, and train Creative team
5. Provide ongoing support for current systems
6. Focus on continued improvements for future development

Craig Cohen, principal of HCS Technology Group, is no stranger to solving complex problems for large companies. In fact, solving business challenges runs in his family. His father co-founded HCS in 1982 when he and a few of his fellow IBM developers decided to switch and work on the Mac platform.

Since then, HCS Technology Group has grown from a company of three to staffing a team of twelve in their four East Coast offices but the motto of striving for excellence in everything they do remains the same as it has been since their founding. HCS Technology Group prides itself on providing comprehensive solutions that enable their clients to achieve more, with greater technical independence and improved Return on Investment (ROI). They accomplish these goals thanks to Apple technology and the genuine enjoyment they derive from what they do.

“My father told me, ‘If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life,’” Craig reminisces, “and I’m living that life right now, because of this job.”

Recently, Craig and his staff were approached with a significant challenge from one of their biggest clients, Henry Schein, Inc. They had been providing innovative solutions to Henry Schein, the largest provider of products and services to office-based medical, dental, and veterinary practitioners in the combined North American and European markets, for a number of years. Now the creative department was seeking an easier and more cost-efficient way to store, organize, and access their enormous collection of high-resolution photos, which they used for print deliverables such as brochures and production catalogues.

The solution needed to be easily accessib 1000 le, scalable, and cost-effective over the long-term. While they were willing to invest in a customized in-house solution, they were no longer willing to outsource their asset management to a service bureau.

HCS Technology Group and Craig Cohen approached this challenge by first understanding Henry Schein’s Schein Creative Service’s asset management workflow. Because they were outsourcing their asset storage and management, organizing, utilizing, and then printing these photos was laborious and inefficient. High-resolution images were stored by a third-party service bureau, which in turn provided low-resolution copies so that designers could work more easily on their deliverables. Once the catalogues or brochures were ready for print, designers at Henry Schein needed to again work with the outsourcing company to swap in the higher resolution versions. All of this back and forth was incredibly time consuming, costing more money with little overall benefit.

“The client approached me and said, ‘we want to control our own images and have an efficient workflow. Isn’t there a way we can make this bigger, better, and faster for the entire company?’” Craig Cohen recalls, “and I said, ‘absolutely.’”

The solution HCS Technology provided was a complete, integrated process that included new hardware for storage, and new software and workflow to automate, manage, and provide accessibility for assets. The images were brought in-house and stored on an Xserve, then added with HELIOS ImageServer (with HELIOS EtherShare). Moving forward, ImageServer, server based image replacement and conversion software, automates the low to high-resolution photo exchange. Cumulus HELIOS Companion synchronizes seamlessly with ImageServer to add the image assets automatically to the Canto Cumulus databases. Designers can then access these images through the Cumulus Workgroup client or via a Web interface, using Cumulus Web Publisher Pro. This coordination provides a manageable interface for the designers to work in, enables them seamless access to file and print servers, and saving valuable time.

As an integral part of this process, HCS replaced three NT Servers with three new Xserves. The first Xserve is now their file, HELIOS, and Canto Cumulus server, connected to an Xserve RAID. The second is their directory server. And the third Xserve is a font, and web server that also acts as a FileMaker Pro server. Backups are handled by Dantz Retrospect and ADIC AIT Loader.

Thanks to this innovative solution from HCS Technology Group, instead of working back and forth with a third-party, Henry Schein has an automated solution for adding new images into their own digital asset system. Photos are exchanged from high to low resolution and back again automatically, saving valuable time. Designers are able to work in QuarkXPress on the low-resolution versions for faster development, and then print in high resolution with HELIOS and Canto doing all the swapping for them.

In addition, the multiple print queues running through HELIOS utilizing OPI enable designers to print to network-based printers or Acrobat Distiller at their own discretion through the Helios server and send pages out to the printers via FTP.

Henry Schein has been using this innovative solution for more than six months, and because HCS Technology Group trained the Creative staff, things are running smoothly. HCS remains available for any ongoing support this solution may require, such as adding additional Xserve RAID drives to enlarge storage cap 1000 acity, but they are already looking ahead at new ways to improve efficiency and ROI. Craig Cohen looks forward to new projects for Henry Schein such as the upcoming migration of the Creative department to Mac OS X v. 10.3.

The HCS Team