Warren and Mahoney required a server solution that not only increased flexibility and ensured business continuity, but met the strict sustainability criteria the company had set itself. Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Hyper-V R2 have provided a reliable and flexible system which streamlines processes, centralizes management and aligns to the CarboNZero certification. The company can now share workloads between servers to enhance performance, and the virtual servers mean users can continue to work without disruption during system maintenance.
Business Needs
Warren and Mahoney is a highly renowned architectural design company, founded in Christchurch in 1955, with offices in Wellington, Auckland and Queenstown. The company has designed a number of architectural masterpieces, including the Westpac Stadium in Wellington, Parliament House, Christchurch Town Hall and Convention Centre, Christchurch and Wellington’s International Airports, the Supreme Court of New Zealand and the New Zealand Pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo 2010. The company ethos is focused around sustainable business practices, innovative culture and close integration between the different offices.
In 2007 Warren and Mahoney became New Zealand's first carbon zero architectural practice, and have developed their own set of environmental protocols which guide everything they do, including all of their IT and communications technology. They are also a founding member of the New Zealand Green Building Council.
Warren and Mahoney had a legacy system based on a Windows Server 2003 environment which was proving to be resource-hungry in terms of both environmental utilities and the hands-on management required to keep the platform operating at an optimal level. Ten servers were creating a large footprint and high operating costs, and in addition to this, system administration was manual and largely reactive, and there was no centralized management of IT resources or flexibility to accommodate growth without enlarging the infrastructure footprint.
“Our IT system is core to our operations, and the CAD software we use puts huge loads on our servers, which needs to be carefully managed,” says Peter Helps, ICT Manager for Warren and Mahoney.
Warren and Mahoney required a centralized system with high levels of stability and reliability for the huge CAD software solutions they use, along with central and simplified management processes, improved business and client delivery, improved collaboration between locations, secure information sharing, remote accessibility and flexibility for future growth. It was also essential that the solution aligned with the company’s CarboNZero certification, delivering IT effectiveness while reducing the company’s carbon footprint, and ensured business continuity with no disruptions to business operations. The end result being that Warren and Mahoney continues to be at the pinnacle of New Zealand's architectural modernism.
Solution
Warren and Mahoney has had a strong relationship with Datasouth for close to 10 years, so it was a no-brainer to approach them to help with the upgrade of the servers and addition of virtualization software.
Datasouth recommended a solution based on Windows Server 2008 R2 and Hyper V Server 2008 R2. Ten physical servers were consolidated into a new environment consisting of three HP Blade servers and storage area network, with each server running multiple virtual machines. The solution was designed in a high availability cluster for automated failover of virtual machines should a failure occur.
Exchange Server 2010 was incorporated in the solution to provide the messaging platform with Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010 providing web edge security. System Center Essentials 2010 provides centralized management, system updates and application
deployment to network assets, as well as providing health and performance reporting of the platform. Remote Desktop Services gives a secure solution for extending the desktop and applications to remote workers, while Active Directory Domain Services supplies the foundation for Identity and Access Management, centralized user provisioning, and management and controlled secure delivery of information across multiple boundaries.
VMware’s vSphere 4.0 was the other option considered by Warren and Mahoney for the virtualisation platform. Datasouth was able to clearly demonstrate the benefits that Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 could offer over vSphere 4.0, including tight integration into the Windows Server 2008 R2 platform and the management functionality provided natively, and enhanced with System Centre Virtual Machine Manager 2008. There was also a distinctive investment disparity between the two solutions – meaning Warren and Mahoney has been able to redirect these substantial investment savings to other IT projects.
“Datasouth worked closely with us to get an understanding of our business requirements, gave us good advice and options on how to proceed, then tailored a streamlined solution to meet our needs,” says Peter.
Deployment took only a few weeks and was seamless, with no disruption to the company. The new solution consolidated servers, improved utilization of resources, and provided scalability, growth, high availability and manageability of the platform. This technology is considered best practice, and offers important disaster recovery features.
Benefits
The main benefits to Warren and Mahoney include:
Streamlined processes with a central management system
Cost savings
Alignment to CarboNZero certification with reduced power consumption and carbon footprint – reduced power and cooling system requirements
Flexibility to expand in the future
Improved reliability
Increased customer satisfaction
Ability to share workloads between servers
Enhanced performance
Better use of resources
Warren and Mahoney also now has the ability to share workloads between servers, leading to enhanced performance and resource benefits.
“This system has definitely made my life easier, such as in deploying new servers. Overall it is more streamlined,” says Peter.
In the event of system maintenance, virtual machines can be manually moved without interrupting users who are online. The servers have been deployed in a high availability cluster, so should server failure occur, the other servers in the cluster will detect this and act accordingly to provide a high level of resilience – something previously only available in complicated, expensive systems.
“Reliability is an absolute bottom line for our architects when they are working on large projects – and the system Datasouth recommended offers us strong assurances in this respect.”
The virtualized server solution allows Warren and Mahoney to put roles into separate servers, where historically they were locked into the hardware and multiple roles had to be loaded manually on each server.
“This solution has also given us greater scalability and flexibility options than competitor systems. We’ve also seen some major power reductions which has saved us money and reduced our carbon footprint.”
Warren and Mahoney has invested heavily in ICT and the company now has a flexible and reliable IT infrastructure that can be easily adapted to suit the company as it grows and provides the high availability demanded by their projects. The result is a client experience that is best in class.
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2008 R2 is the latest version of the Windows Server operating system from Microsoft. With Windows Server 2008 R2, you can create solutions that are easier to plan, deploy, and manage than with previous versions of Windows Server. Building on the features, security, reliability, and performance provided by Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 extends connectivity and control to local and remote resources. This means that your organization can benefit from reduced costs and increased efficiencies gained through enhanced management and control over resources across the enterprise
For more information, go to
www.microsoft.com/WindowsServer2008R2
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400
. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com
For more information about Datasouth products and services, call
+64 (9) 523 4485 or visit the Web site at: www.datasouth.co.nz
For more information about Warren and Mahoney products and services, call
+64 (9) 309 4894 or visit the Web site at: www.warrenandmahoney.com
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
