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Banff National Park might be home to over 50 different species of mammals, but it wasn't the elk nibbling on the power cords that was causing the servers at Banff Lake Louise Tourism to crash every morning.

It was, in fact, simply time for a new one.

And, when their IT consultant weighed in, it was a Dell he recommended.

"I asked him why he chose Dell and he said it was the reliability, the support and the pricing," says Liz Archer, director of finance and administration at Banff Lake Louise Tourism.

The organization represents businesses located in Banff National Park, focusing on both the Town of Banff and the Hamlet of Lake Louise. It also acts as a central visitor information source.

As well, Banff Lake Louise Tourism is responsible for several ongoing initiatives designed to improve visitor experiences while in Banff National Park.

"Without technology that works, we couldn't work. We communicate with people all over the world. And everything from our accounting to our communications is done using technology," says Ms. Archer.

The new server is a Dell PowerEdge T410, known for its advanced processing performance, memory and storage, compact and quiet design and simplified systems management capabilities.

With 23 full-time staff in its marketing office, Banff Lake Louise Tourism runs the information centres in Banff, Lake Louise and Field with six full-time and 12 seasonal staff members.

"We use Microsoft® software for all our day to day office tasks - word docs, spreadsheets, PowerPoint, Outlook, etc. and the Microsoft Small Business software runs our network infrastructure on the file server and all network-related services," says Ms. Archer.

With Microsoft® Small Business Server 2008 on the server, the organization uses Windows 7 Professional® and Microsoft Office Professional 2010®.

"As well, we have custom-built software on our website to facilitate our online booking engine," says Ms. Archer.

Banff Lake Louise Tourism's website is loaded with information and downloadable brochures, along with a booking engine for visitors looking to pre-book hotel accommodation and activities in the area.

The organization also uses its technology for worldwide marketing campaigns, promoting Banff National Park on all continents except Africa. "We promote this destination far more than other organizations of our size because the national park is such an iconic part of Canada," says Ms. Archer.

Having made the switch to its new server at the beginning of July, Banff Lake Louise Tourism no longer has to give its technology a second thought, which allows more time to enjoy the visitors, the mountains and, of course, the elk.

"In the operational work of an organization, when everything is working well like our technology is, you don't even think about it," says Ms. Archer. "We didn't have any downtime in making the transition to our new server, and our team now has the assurance that when we come to work, our computers will be working too."

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