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powerful xw4550 systems have boosted engineer’s
productivity by speeding up applications and handling
large files with ease. And the HP Workstation’s energy
efficiency aligns with BED’s environmental values by
minimizing power usage as well.
Money left over
The decision to purchase the new Workstations was
based in part on BED’s experience with three HP
xw4400 Workstations that it purchased to run a radio
dispatching system and a power plant control system.
The Workstations had replaced a pair of non-HP PCs
that had proven both under-powered and unreliable.
“They were problematic,” says Michael Raine, Sr.
Network Administrator, Burlington Electric. “They were
failing a lot.” The HP Workstations, on the other hand,
proved to be both powerful and reliable, handling the
dispatching tasks with ease. So when it was time to
replace the desktops BED was using for its engineering
applications, Brad Ormsby, President of HP channel
partner Ormsby’s Computer Systems, Inc.,
recommended the HP xw4550 Workstations.
The HP Workstations were a fit in every way, Ormsby
says. The price was right—the xw4550 system were
so economical, in fact, that the utility had funding
remaining to invest in 22-inch diagonal monitors—
larger screens that it originally thought it could
afford.
Power to spare
The Workstations’ 4 GB of memory deliver the
computing power the utility needs. BED is preparing to
roll out a Geologic Information System (GIS); this
application combines spatial data, such as aerial
photographs, with other data such as schematics to
make managing the electrical grid easier and more
automated. “Once it’s up and running, our GIS will
help us respond more effectively to outages,” Raine
explains. “We’ll be able to tell more quickly which
circuits are open, right down to which houses have lost
power.”
“When I first learned about the HP xw4550
Workstations, I knew they were the affordable, high-
power solution Burlington Electric engineers need. The
Workstations’ AMD Opteron processors and
architecture maximize the systems’ performance
because data is cached on the processor itself,
reducing slow-downs in data processing. Combined
with HP’s competitive pricing, the Workstations were
the perfect fit for Burlington.”
Brad Ormsby, President, Ormsby’s Computer Systems, Inc.
To implement the GIS, however, BED engineers need to
work with very large data files, AutoCAD drawings
and high resolution “orthophotos” (specialized aerial
“With the HP xw4550 Workstation, our
engineers work with multiple CAD and high-
resolution image files at once. They load
fast, so our users are more productive. And
the price of the Workstations came well
under our budget—so low that we had
money left over to invest in the large,
22-inch diagonal monitors our engineers
prefer for viewing drawings and working
with split-screen windows.”
Michael Raine, Sr. Network Administrator,
Burlington Electric Department
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