- Steve Ballmer Chief Executive Officer Microsoft
Read the following case studies that are dedicated to sustainability in virtualization.
Banque de Luxembourg is one of that country’s leading private banks, serving private investors across the continent. To uphold its tradition of innovation and demonstrate its commitment to environmental responsibility, the bank decided to consolidate its data centers through virtualization technology. Using Windows Server® 2008 Datacenter with Hyper-V™technology and Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager, the bank implemented 50 virtual machines in a high-availability configuration running on 7 physical servers. It also will reduce the need for computer hardware, power and cooling, and office space, for a more cost-effective, environmentally sound operation.
eLinia provides hosting solutions to large organizations—from government agencies to tier one banks—that need total security. One of its services, Secure Exchange, is used to securely transfer files. In 2007, the company began hosting the application with the Windows Server® 2008 operating system. Now, Secure Exchange is even more robust, improving customer experience. And virtualization reduces the company’s carbon footprint.
HotSchedules has been providing online labor-scheduling services for the restaurant and hospitality industry since 1999. With dozens of accounts including national chains like P.F. Chang’s China Bistro, HotSchedules hosts more than a quarter of a million users and has been experiencing annual growth over 100 percent for several years. HotSchedules needed an agile and scalable IT environment that could respond quickly to growth opportunities. The company deployed the Windows Server® 2008 operating system with Hyper-V™ virtualization technology to consolidate its server environment, reduce costs, and maximize network performance. By hosting up to 19 virtual machines on each physical server, HotSchedules increased its growth capacity while cutting power costs 77 percent and enhancing the company’s competitive position.
The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) wanted to streamline data center and administration costs so it could direct more resources to new educational services. Using Hyper-V, KDE plans to reduce its centralized physical server holdings by 60 percent by 2010.
According to HostReview magazine, Netherlands-based LeaseWeb is the world’s fastest growing Web-hosting company, having doubled its employees and its hosting network capacity during 2007. The company is also Dell’s largest Internet partner in Europe and a leader in "green" hosting. LeaseWeb continually evaluates state-of-the-art technology to improve the quality, range, and cost-effectiveness of its customer services and to reduce its environmental footprint. In 2008, it turned to virtualization and Microsoft® Virtualization technology to help meet its goals and to ensure continued strong growth.
The Maxol markets a comprehensive range of oil and petroleum products to all sectors of the Irish market. Always trying to trim costs, Maxol wanted to curb the rate of server growth and the costs associated with server proliferation. It also wanted to boost utilization of its servers, some of which ran at a limited capacity. Maxol used the Windows Server® 2008 Enterprise operating system featuring Hyper-V™ virtualization technology to consolidate 22 servers to 6 servers, an 80 percent reduction.
After Quad/Graphics virtualized its servers, the company was able to remove 75 physical servers from its infrastructure and eliminate the need to purchase 75 additional physical servers. This saved 25 percent in hardware costs and even more in data center infrastructure costs, such as network switches, racks, fan switchboards, and cable. "We realized major cost avoidance benefits with Virtual Server. Not only did we save money that previously was spent equipping, managing, and powering the data center, we have so much extra space now," says Damian Drewek, IS-Director of Technical Services, Quad/Graphics.
RBA saved US$30,000 on hardware costs. When the company created the 12 virtual machines (VMs) for the servers that ran the 64-bit edition of Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise, it used its Virtual Server host clustering solution to free space on 10 physical servers. The VMs have also helped RBA reduce the electrical consumption costs for servers and air conditioners in the data center by 50 percent.
The SCOOTER Store consolidated and reduced the number of servers in its IT environment. As a result, the company saves between US$150,000 and US$200,000 in IT hardware costs. And it is increasing its return on investment by 50 percent. "We have 13 physical servers doing what 52 servers used to do," says Barrett Blake, Infrastructure Architect at the Scooter Store. "We’re talking about saving $150,000 worth of physical hardware and that doesn’t include the power requirements for them."
Sporton Labs implemented Hyper-V to consolidate workloads efficiently on single servers. The company now gets more value out of its hardware resources. And the Sporton IT department can support the business with less hardware, which results in lower equipment costs, reduced electrical consumption, and more space in the data center. "Since deploying Hyper-V, we have reduced hardware requirements by a one-to-seven ratio, saving more than 70 percent of our hardware costs," says Kathy Lin IT Manager, Sporton International. "We’ve increased server utilization from 10 to 15 percent to more than 70 percent because a single quad-core server running Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V can host as many as seven virtual servers."
TALX, provider of Equifax Workforce Solutions, delivers automated, Web-based human resource, payroll, and employment-verification services to more than 9,000 business customers. TALX deployed the Windows Server® 2008 operating system with Hyper-V™ virtualization technology and Microsoft® System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 to enhance IT performance and increase efficiency by enabling development teams to self-manage their virtual machine environments. The company uses Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 to develop products efficiently, reduce costs, and to maintain a competitive advantage by continually enhancing its services.
