Case Studies

The IT staff for the Chancellor’s office at California State University (CSU) was facing difficult management issues for the 75 applications and 600 desktops it supports. Laborious deployments and extremely time-consuming upgrades required reboots, causing downtime for users. Many business applications required local administrator access to install, creating security risks. Some users, such as developers often needed multiple application versions, requiring IT to remove and reload applications after each usage. To simplify application management, the university deployed Microsoft® Application Virtualization 4.5. Now CSU has streamlined application deployment, making it much easier for users and faster for IT staff. Upgrades now take a fraction of the time they used to, and security has been improved. Users enjoy multiple version support, and IT has better disaster recovery capabilities.

The SOK Group is Russia’s largest automotive components manufacturer and second-largest automobile producer. With more than a dozen industrial enterprises, including joint international projects with other manufacturers and distributors, SOK needs a highly reliable and accessible IT infrastructure. The company saw that it could enhance the reliability and flexibility of its IT infrastructure by using Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V technology to virtualize workloads and consolidate servers. Since deploying Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, SOK has not only enhanced the reliability, scalability, and flexibility of its technology infrastructure, but also significantly reduced costs. The company now has the agility it needs to respond rapidly to constantly changing business opportunities.

Based in New Hampshire, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC) began using server virtualization three years ago to curb server proliferation and rising electrical costs. The hospital and teaching facility initially used Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 to trim 75 servers but wanted to move even more applications to virtual machines. DHMC decided to move its virtualization infrastructure to the Windows Server 2008 operating system with Hyper-V technology, using Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 to manage its server landscape. DHMC expects to reduce total server holdings by 75 percent and save U.S.$4,300 per server in hardware, maintenance, electrical, and real-estate costs. It can now virtualize its most demanding applications and expects to improve service levels, save 30 hours each month in server management, and create a more dynamic IT environment.

Jackson Energy Authority (JEA) is a utility provider in Tennessee. JEA wanted to virtualize more servers and improve application availability so employees weren’t disrupted while serving customers. When Jackson Energy Authority heard about the Microsoft Virtualization Rapid Deployment Program (RDP), staff in the 20-member IT department staff jumped at the opportunity to participate. The JEA team worked with technology partner ATA Technologies, a Microsoft Certified Partner, to determine a business plan for the RDP. They focused on deploying Terminal Services in a Hyper-V environment so that they could retire the existing solution and improve business application availability. They are saving more than U.S.$35,000 in licensing and hardware costs and gaining a high-availability solution to ensure reliable business applications and good customer service.