Archive for Consolidation
September 18, 2007 at 9:14 pm · Filed under Consolidation, virtualization
http://parallelsvirtualization.blogspot.com/2007/09/swsoft-intel-join-forces-on-major.html
Today we announced that SWsoft, Parallels’ parent company, and Intel have joined forces on a major collaboration to make desktop virtualization an accepted and mainstream technology, specifically by engaging our engineering teams to accelerate the development and implementation of key workstation and desktop technologies, including Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (Intel® VT-d) and Intel® Trusted Execution Technology (Intel® TXT).
There’s a lot of technical jargon in that short sentence, so let me answer the real question…why does this collaboration matter?
Collaborating with Intel on TXT, which is a new processor-level technology that ensures that the boot process is secure, meams that Parallels can offer the world’s first truly secure VMM, one in which we can guarantee that the Parallels hypervisor and VMM have not been compromised by any kind of malware (think Blue Pill).
Very cool, desktop virtualization remains an effective platform for delivering the desktop in a more energy efficient and operationally efficient way. Being able to dynamically provision, to roll back or increase instances in line with demand changes again the model from desktop selling, box provisioning to service provisioning, where I can respond to the business need, a more fluid type way of providing the IT infrastructure.
September 12, 2007 at 9:26 pm · Filed under Consolidation, virtualization
http://www.vnunet.com/computing/analysis/2198566/case-study-powys-county-council
Powys County Council is cutting electricity use in its data centres by 75 per cent with virtualisation software that reduces server numbers from 80 to four.
The new architecture, which uses Dell hardware to replace the local authority’s obsolete data centres, will also provide an estimated 25 per cent increase in
performance.
The scheme has a significant environmental dimension both reducing electricity use directly and cutting the number of chillers the council needs to cool its equipment.
But with local authorities under pressure to deliver improved services with decreasing budgets, cost is also a compelling motivation, said Powys head
of information and customer services Andrew Smith.
Very cool, check out this article talking about how this council has implemented virtualization as a way of improving the way it provides the infrastructure as well as benefiting from energy efficiency, a good read, check it out.
September 11, 2007 at 7:36 am · Filed under Consolidation, Other things
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=it_in_government&articleId=302220&taxonomyId=69&intsrc=kc_top
September 10, 2007 (Computerworld) — West Virginia is part of a wave of states that are embracing data center and server consolidation in their government IT operations. It’s replacing 85 e-mail servers that run a half-dozen different applications with four Exchange-based systems — two for production, and two for backup.
And that’s just for starters. Kyle Schafer, West Virginia’s chief technology officer, wants to extend the consolidation initiative to the state’s financial, procurement and human resources management systems. The savings on hardware alone justify the move, according to Schafer, who said that West Virginia currently replaces as many as 20 e-mail servers annually as part of its regular hardware refresh cycle.
Check out this article, its talking about how the state of West Virginia is implementing server consolidation as a process to improve the IT operations, it’s a very good read.
July 8, 2007 at 11:14 pm · Filed under Consolidation, Other things
http://www.computerworlduk.com/technology/applications/desktop/news/index.cfm?newsid=3871
Large PC users are increasingly looking to VDI - virtual desktop infrastructure, which uses VMWare to host virtual PCs - as an alternative to current server-based computing approaches such as Citrix and Windows Terminal Server (WTS), says thin client developer Igel Technology.
Igel has added VDI support to its thin clients and also to a PC conversion card, which it claimed allows old PCs to be redeployed as diskless workstations. The supplier said this means that customers can deploy virtual PCs to the desktop for as little as £162 a user - or £95 if reusing an old PC.
Check out this article, the interesting thing with this is that a phased approach can be used to successfully virtualize the desktop, that I can make the existing desktop pc, my thin client, and as the pc reaches the end of life stage, deploy a new thin client/pc as appropriate.
June 28, 2007 at 2:35 pm · Filed under Consolidation, datacenter
Many of the banks and the enteprise organizations are going through a consolidate exercise; whether it’s upgrading to windows 2003, deploying VMWare and virtualizing the infrastructure, or even consolidating data center space. With this comes the art of the decommission. Of taking the servers that are no longer required and removing them in a way that causes the least disruption in a co-ordinated and time efficient way, I need to get rid of the tin, but I need to backup the data first, depreciate any asset value left, maybe retain any parts? Reclaim the space and power in my data center management tools etc.
The challenges with this can be frustrating, it requires effective communication and with all the planning in the world it is easy to have an ‘unplanned outage’, when someone agreed to a server being decommissioned or removed but changed their mind during or after the event. I’ve experienced, and heard many a story, “Decommission server 47589? We didn’t think you meant now! We need to migrate…. We need another…”
To avoid these kind of things there needs to be an agreed way of decommissioning a server, a set work flow, and quite possibly a team dedicated to this task - granted you might not allocate people to decommissioning forever, but for say a few months to get those servers out the door, in terms of power and data center space, it’s worth it, not to mention in doing so granting new projects the data center space they need.
This process would probably be based around your help desk system, using the Change process to notify the various teams, but during the actual act of switching off and erasing the box, consider that a quick phone call/email to your support team, to the operators helps keep everyone involved in case things go wrong.
June 20, 2007 at 11:26 pm · Filed under Consolidation, datacenter
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/06/20/HP-case-study_1.html
The $100 million datacenter consolidation project being undertaken by Hewlett-Packard will help it be more efficient but also informs the consulting advice it gives to client companies.
HP officials updated customers, employees and partners on the progress of its project Tuesday at the HP Technology Forum being held in Las Vegas.
The company is in the second year of a three-year process to consolidate 85 datacenters worldwide in just six — two each in Atlanta, Houston, and Austin, Texas. Three of the six new sites are already up and running and the remaining three should be completed within 60 days, said Randy Mott, executive vice president and chief information officer of HP.
There are a number of companies in the city that are going through data center migration projects, or consolidating their data centers to newer sites to deal with new business or power and cooling requirements, with this in mind how these businesses migrate their systems, how they consolidate their servers will be done differently what remains key though is:
- Delivery - delivering what you said you’d deliver
- Managing perception - ensuring that user perception is maintained
- Accountability - one person/team/group accountable to deliver and resolve issues
- Efficiency - long term approach - do we really want to move that Compaq Proliant 5000r to our new data center? Shouldn’t we virtualize it?
June 19, 2007 at 11:26 pm · Filed under Consolidation, Other things, vmware
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070619005253&newsLang=en
LOWELL, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Virtual Iron Software (www.virtualiron.com), a provider of enterprise-class server virtualization and virtual infrastructure management software, today announced the signing of four new distribution partners in Europe. The agreements immediately expand the availability of Virtual Iron’s solutions to over five hundred new reseller partners across Europe and open up the market for server virtualization and management with an affordable alternative to existing proprietary solutions.
The more distribution partners Virtual Iron has the more exposure to the market place it will hopefully achieve. Whether you’re looking at virtualization to abstract the hardware, to consolidate the IT, or to move towards IT as a service; do check the different virtualization platforms, work out which one represents the best fit for your IT, your business.
June 11, 2007 at 9:30 pm · Filed under Consolidation, Other things, datacenter
One of the things many of the banks in the city are facing is problems with data center space. That they’re reaching capacity, bringing on new facilities, with that in mind, is virtualization the next platform, the tool of choice to carry out wintel/linux server moves?
That I can take my Compaq DL360, virtualize it on to my DL585/my blade farm in data center 1 (DC1), then send it over the LAN, and either have a virtual infrastructure in the new data center (DC4) bringing me all the associated benefits. The reason for mentioning this is that the cost of moving a server financially as well as a service delivery standpoint can be very significant, it might only be a two hour journey in the back of a van, but its’ the move part that might take much longer from an outage standpoint. That stop application, shut down server, stop monitoring, unrack server, package it, courier it, then unpack it, rack it, patch it, switch it on, enable monitoring, test, all the hidden bits. Not to mention the cost of having some vendor approved engineers to deal with any hardware failures, do consider those Compaq 6500s, the 5000s, ensuring that you can adequately plan and respond to these is important.
So let’s use the technology as a server move enabler right? The cost of moving the server estate can be horrific, from the courier cost, the insurance, the internal/external engineers time as well as everything else, and the risk particularly to the legacy systems can be a problem, for example, say it’s £750 to move a Compaq Proliant 6500, surely from a risk/benefit analysis we’re better virtualizing it/replacing it than moving it?
Granted I know most places wouldn’t the capex (initial capital cost being the problem), but it’s nice to dream..
I’ll take the DL360, virtualize it one weekend on to my ESX host, then over the weekend when it’s not in use, send it to the new data center on to my new ESX servers. Moving our existing server estate, our existing storage, networks and everything else moves the problems with us, we don’t get to build data centers that often, so effectively and efficiently handling the space allocation, the move is just as important as co-ordinating the down time.
June 5, 2007 at 2:33 pm · Filed under Consolidation, datacenter, environment
http://www.idm.net.au/story.asp?id=8498
June 5, 2007: In line with World Environment Day, VMware has talked up their role in not only saving dollars, but also reducing the C02 emissions of IT organisations, reiterating to IDM their virtualised server consolidation rate of 12 to 1.
As pressures are mounting on CIOs and IT managers to get a hold of their escalating power bills and sprawling data centres, virtualisation technologies are providing a well-needed respite from growing budgets and public condemnation over exceeding energy usage.
Paul Harapin, managing director of VMware in Australia points out it’s virtualisation technologies providing the perfect opportunity for organisations to take hold of their growing carbon emissions, yet still maintain the power and force of their IT infrastructures.
“More CEOs are coming out and giving statements about having their organisations go ‘carbon neutral.’ It was only a couple of weeks ago that Rupert Murdoch made the commitment to achieve this by 2010,†says Harapin. “Given that it’s IT that’s driving 60 percent or more of a company’s power utilisation, where do you think they’re going to look first?â€
The more VMWare highlight the benefits of their product from an environmental and energy standpoint, the more it aids the virtualization movement which has to be a good thing. Not only does reducing the size of your server estate using VMWare or the other virutalization platforms save you money through direct energy costs, you can also use it as a vehicle to reduce your annual hardware support costs, at the same time evaluate how much air conditioning you need, keeping in mind that cooling remains an expensive part of the data center operation costs. Very cool article, check it out.
May 31, 2007 at 5:42 pm · Filed under Consolidation, Other things
http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2190980/rbs-consolidates-customer
The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to consolidate data from more than 1,500 sources to give sales staff a single view of customer information.
The bespoke tool will be a single port of call to establish which banking services a customer uses, their behaviour patterns and credit risk.
The system will allow employees to identify what products can be cross-sold to customers, says RBS head of performance analytics David Samson.
‘The retail banking market is saturated and this could help us increase our market share,’ said Samson. ‘Having all the data available also prevents mis-selling, such as offering a credit card to someone with debt issues.’
Cross selling is a great way of doing business, being able to be informed about your customers to see what products they might be interested, its cheaper to sell to an existing customer than a new one, with that in mind, the more IT can be used to provide an overal picture of the customer, the more the sales teams, the customer support teams can target products/opportunities that might be right for the customer and earn revenue, RBS seem to have developed a system to help with this - very, very cool.
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