16 September 2008

Hyper-V gives us all the virtualisation features we need in a very cost-effective package

Roger Killick, IT manager, Standard Drives Siemens Standard Drives has reduced the number of physical machines it uses by more than 75 per cent by consolidating its servers with Microsoft virtualisation technology.

This is not only saving the company valuable space in its server rooms, but also cutting power consumption significantly and lowering energy costs. “Hyper-V gives us all the virtualisation features we need in a very cost-effective package. It’s an excellent investment, because we’ll also save money on future training and support costs,” said Roger Killick, IT manager at Standard Drives.

The company manufactures variable speed drives in a 24-hour production environment. All the factory’s computer and test systems are networked, with data passing through a primary and a secondary set of servers and storage. Server availability is crucial, because if the IT infrastructure goes down, production stops.

The company’s servers were increasing in number, but physical space and power were in short supply. Running a VMware virtualization solution was proving prohibitive. The IT team worked with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Silversands to deploy Hyper-V technology.

“Silversands has real expertise as an early adopter of Microsoft technology, and the team talked us through the benefits of Hyper-V,” said Killick. They deployed the software across four servers running Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition in a Server Core configuration. The Server Core deployment installs only the components of Windows Server that the company needs, lowering the amount of patching and maintenance required by the software, and reducing the attack surface exposed to the network.

The pilot programme was a great success, and Siemens Standard Drives quickly began moving virtual servers from its VMware solution to Hyper-V. Any new virtual servers are now also created using the Microsoft technology. When the rollout is completed, ten physical servers running Hyper-V will carry out the same work that 50 physical machines did before.

The company has also deployed the beta version of Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, and Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2008. Damian Davis, virtualization technical lead at Silversands, said: “Combining Hyper-V with Systems Center administration products helps reduce the complexity of managing a growing virtualized server estate.”