Datacenter Virtualization & Management Success Stories

Featured Case Studies

• 

  Dell

  As one of the world’s leading computer manufacturers, Dell is committed to technology excellence. To help ensure that the applications…

  As one of the world’s leading computer manufacturers, Dell is committed to technology excellence. To help ensure that the applications its own employees depend on run reliably, Dell uses Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) technology, which eliminates application-to-application conflicts and keeps operating systems clean. Application deployments are now faster, desktop PCs are much more stable, and user productivity is greatly enhanced.

  Read the Case Study

• 

  BMW Group

  BMW Group is a global automobile manufacturer with 24 production sites in 13 countries. More than 1,000 applications are used to run the business…

  BMW Group is a global automobile manufacturer with 24 production sites in 13 countries. More than 1,000 applications are used to run the business. Deploying these applications was time-consuming and expensive, even though packaging and manual software installations were outsourced. Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) made it possible to reduce application deployment time by 50 percent and compatibility testing by 90 percent—from six days to less than a day. By December 2010, more than 400 applications will be virtualized, enabling zero-touch deployment and saving nearly U.S.$200,000 that was spent annually on manual installations. The company’s rollout of the Windows 7 operating system is simplified by using App-V for future application strategy and Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization to run older applications.

  Read the Case Study

• 

  Royal Mail Group

  The government-owned Royal Mail Group (RMG) in the United Kingdom operates the national postal service, which is facing the need to transform its IT infrastructure to meet new business challenges…

  The government-owned Royal Mail Group (RMG) in the United Kingdom operates the national postal service, which is facing the need to transform its IT infrastructure to meet new business challenges. The company decided to consider virtualisation of its existing Windows environment to achieve savings and improve management and monitoring of the infrastructure. Working with CSC and Microsoft Services, RMG decided to implement the virtualisation service with the Hyper-V feature of Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter and the Microsoft System Center suite of monitoring tools. The deployment, using HP hardware, has the capacity to host around 720 RMG servers, of which around 120 virtual machines—including production servers—have been migrated so far. By virtualising its server estate, RMG expects a return on investment in 19 months and savings of £1.8 million over four years.

  Read the Case Study

• 

  CH2M HILL

  Engineering firm CH2M HILL was an early user of virtualization software to lower server costs. However, when the global economy began to slump in 2007, the company sought a more cost-effective virtualization solution than VMware…

  Engineering firm CH2M HILL was an early user of virtualization software to lower server costs. However, when the global economy began to slump in 2007, the company sought a more cost-effective virtualization solution than VMware. It switched to the Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter operating system with Hyper-V virtualization technology, and also deployed Microsoft System Center data center solutions to simplify server management. With the switch to Hyper-V, CH2M HILL projects software savings of up to U.S.$280,000 over the next three to five years and hardware savings of up to $3 million by virtualizing field servers, which was cost-prohibitive with VMware. Additionally, the company foresees reducing server management work by 30 percent, giving staff more time to focus on strategic work. CH2M HILL will also be able to extend high availability to field servers by using Hyper-V.

  Read the Case Study

• 

  Liberty Wines

  Wine importer and distributor Liberty Wines wanted to speed up business processes to improve the way it met the needs of customers in the fast-paced world of fine dining…

  Wine importer and distributor Liberty Wines wanted to speed up business processes to improve the way it met the needs of customers in the fast-paced world of fine dining. Updating its existing IT infrastructure was an important part of this plan. After consulting with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Managed Networks, Liberty Wines deployed a virtualised server solution incorporating Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V. The new infrastructure reduced hardware replacement costs by £45,000 and energy consumption by approximately 60 per cent, while enhancing stability. Applications run faster so employees can provide better customer service with improved productivity. Virtual servers can be added quickly and easily, as needed, to meet the future growth of the business.

  Read the Case Study