Kroll Factual Data of Loveland, Colorado, is a longtime provider of information services to the mortgage industry. The firm wanted to optimize its server infrastructure to better meet spikes in demand and reduce data center costs. Kroll Factual Data virtualized its data center using Windows Server® 2008 and Hyper-V™ technology, consolidating 650 servers to 22. It further streamlined its infrastructure using Microsoft® System Center data center solutions to monitor and manage its physical and virtual landscape, and Microsoft Visual Studio® development tools to quickly develop applications. With its new optimized infrastructure, the company can grow faster, scale quickly to meet customer needs, and dramatically reduce IT costs. Kroll Factual Data has cut annual hardware expenditures by tens of thousands of dollars and energy costs by U.S.$442,554 annually.

Richard Anderson is out to forge a new communications model that transforms community newspaper companies into virtual neighborhood companies. Anderson is Chief Executive Officer of VillageSoup, a software company in Maine. As the company grew through acquisitions, technology issues consumed ever more time. Anderson used Microsoft® virtualization technology to reduce the company’s server count by one-third, avoiding new hardware costs of roughly U.S.$25,000 and IT labor costs of about $83,000 annually. Anderson can now hire more talent to grow the business. Also, improved server reliability increases staff productivity.

As Chief Information Officer of Dinsmore & Shohl, a Cincinnati, Ohio, law firm, Juanene Wong has to deliver unfailing e-mail service to 400 attorneys while keeping operating costs in check. This became increasingly difficult as the firm accumulated 14 messaging servers in 10 locations. Wong turned to Windows Server® 2008 and Hyper-V™ virtualization technology to centralize and consolidate those servers. She reduced e-mail servers by 85 percent, reduced the firm’s electrical costs by U.S.$8,300 annually, and reduced ongoing server expenses by 20 percent. This frees the firm to grow without big increases in its technology spending.

A Louisville, Kentucky based hosting partner, MaximumASP provides exclusively Microsoft® Windows® based Web hosting and managed IT services to over 2,500 customers in more than 60 countries, with over 50,000 domains with 2,700 servers. The company provides comprehensive network protection, automated server patching, and advanced server monitoring to customers. MaximumASP’s customers are primarily Web developers, including ISV’s and SMB’s looking to outsource application hosting. Due to its expertise in Microsoft technologies, MaximumASP focuses on the Microsoft developer ecosystem for their hosting needs. MaximumASP takes pride in working closely with customers on a regular basis and routinely soliciting their feedback.

In Le Mars, Iowa, Wells’ Dairy produces ice cream and frozen desserts under the BLUE BUNNY® brand. As the company faces a challenging market, the IT department aims to provide cost-effective services and promote business continuity and agility. It turned to virtualization, but its original solution from Microsoft couldn’t virtualize 64-bit operating systems, which capped server consolidation efforts and limited test environments. Wells’ Dairy ultimately deployed the Windows Server® 2008 Datacenter operating system and Hyper-V™ virtualization technology. Today, it has a scalable server consolidation solution and a data center that is saving more than US.$12,000 in annual electrical costs. The IT staff is virtualizing critical applications in the production environment using clustering for high availability and is offering efficient, cost-effective virtualized test services.

Edipower, one of Italy’s major energy providers, requires continuously reliable information systems to integrate its services, support its business processes, and generate and distribute energy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But as the company’s IT infrastructure grew to 120 servers, it became complex and difficult to manage. Edipower wanted to cut IT management costs, reduce the number of physical servers it operated, and optimize system flexibility to best serve its business requirements. Using the Windows Server® 2008 operating system with Hyper-V™ virtualization technology, the company consolidated its server environment and streamlined the deployment of new services. By developing its virtualized infrastructure, Edipower has lowered costs, reduced downtime, saved energy, optimized 24-hour information services, and aligned its IT processes to its business goals.

About 80 percent of server deployments in the Microsoft IT data centers are deployed as virtual servers via Windows Server® 2008 Hyper-V™ technology. To ensure optimal performance, Microsoft Information Technology (Microsoft IT) has developed configuration best practices, based on the application workloads or services that the virtual servers provide.

Getronics Australia is a leading provider of managed workspace, infrastructure optimisation and unified communications solutions. Following its acquisition by UXC Limited, the company needed to rebuild its ICT environment, which had to be robust, agile and advanced to meet the demands of a pioneering ICT business and its professional mobile staff. After examining numerous options, Getronics implemented a comprehensive, all-Microsoft® infrastructure encompassing security, desktop, messaging, collaboration, management, productivity and server systems. The company took advantage of the latest unified communications and security features, which provided all-round access for the workforce. Getronics’ new platform streamlined business processes and improved collaboration, creating a standard-setting information systems solution that serves as a model for the company’s own clients.

Nissan Ireland relies on a robust and manageable technology infrastructure to keep the vehicle distributor’s main office in Dublin connected to its 55 dealerships around Ireland. The company chose to upgrade to the Windows Server® 2008 Enterprise operating system to take advantage of enhanced security and management features and virtualization technologies. Windows Server 2008 has enabled the company to retire 33 percent of its physical servers, thus decreasing the server footprint and allowing purchase of a less expensive cooling system. At the same time, Nissan Ireland upgraded its desktop and laptop computer users to the Windows Vista® Enterprise operating system. Users have found Windows Vista to be reliable and intuitive, and IT staff members have seen a decrease in desktop support calls, which allows them to spend their energy on more strategic projects.

SABMiller RUS is a subsidiary of one of the world’s largest brewers, SABMiller plc, which has operations on six continents. The company maintains a variety of information services for business users, allocating a dedicated server for each service. As SABMiller RUS grew and expanded IT services, its main data center soon grew to accommodate 48 servers, increasing hardware, energy, and management costs while reducing system efficiency and reliability. To reduce costs, increase efficiency, and improve IT responsiveness to business needs, SABMiller RUS needed to optimize its server infrastructure. The company virtualized its servers with Windows Server 2008 featuring Hyper-V virtualization technology, which helped consolidate its environment to just six physical servers, reduce costs 48 percent, accelerate service deployment from weeks to hours, and increase server utilization tenfold.