Microsoft Private Cloud Success Stories

Although The Walsh Group specializes in building big things, it wanted to shrink its data center. The Chicago, Illinois–based builder of highways, skyscrapers, and subways sought to reduce server costs and make IT more responsive to the business. To do both, the IT staff jettisoned VMware virtualization software and used the Hyper-V virtualization technology included in Windows Server 2008 R2 to virtualize not only servers but PCs. It is adding Microsoft System Center 2012 to create a private cloud computing structure that will enable it to deliver more reliable IT services on demand. With virtualized computer resources and automated efficiencies, Walsh reduces IT management costs by up to US$150,000 a year, frees its IT staff from repetitive work, and lowers hardware and energy costs by 20 percent. It can be greener with cloud computing and give employees easier access to applications.

With a large project backlog, the development and test infrastructure at ING DIRECT Australia could not meet the bank’s appetite for innovation. The bank’s in-house team of 49 developers and 18 testers needed a faster way to create new copies of the bank so they could accelerate time to market for new products and services. ING DIRECT worked collaboratively with systems integrator Dimension Data and technical experts from Microsoft, Cisco Systems and NetApp to design and deploy Bank in a Box, an integrated development and testing solution that enables rapid provisioning of test environments.

Staffordshire County Council is the eighth-largest council in England and a leader in shared IT services. It wanted to benefit from management and virtualisation to save money and ensure continuity of critical applications, while creating a private cloud environment to extend shared services. Working with Risual, the authority carried out a proof of concept and a production deployment solution using the Microsoft System Center suite and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2. Over the next 12 months, significant savings and productivity gains are expected, with server build times cut by around 90 per cent and scope to reduce human resource demands. Staffordshire can now enter more shared services partnerships and can accurately bill for underlying services. New server provisioning now takes seconds and only five to 10 minutes to be fully on the domain, with no disruption to the organisation.

The ministries and agencies of the Albanian government were making great strides in their use of technology—but that became a problem. A growing number of decentralized applications ran on a variety of platforms—making it impossible to achieve economies of scale. The agency tasked with tackling this challenge lacked the computing resources and personnel to centralize, standardize, and manage hundreds of traditional application servers. By hosting the applications in a private cloud environment based on Microsoft technologies, the agency has found that its current resources—both technological and human—are ample. Government users now get better, faster, and more reliable application services. And IT professionals at the agency easily handle the increased workload while working fewer nights and weekends than before.

Apartments.com is a national online apartment search service. To stay competitive, it needs to roll out new services quickly and deliver outstanding performance for approximately 6 million visitors a month. To do both, it needed a more dynamic IT infrastructure. Apartments.com replaced VMware with Hyper-V virtualization technology in Windows Server 2008 R2 and is using Microsoft System Center 2012 to create a private cloud environment. Developers can obtain needed servers 50 percent faster, which speeds the delivery of new site features. Apartments.com can also scale performance automatically to ensure a great visitor experience. By switching to Hyper-V, Apartments.com reduced its hypervisor licensing costs by 75 percent and now makes better use of server hardware. Also, the company needs about 20 percent fewer IT administrators, who can spend their time adding more value to the business.