The idea of IT virtualisation is fast gaining popularity, but it can be a hard concept to pin down. Different providers, vendors and resellers can define the term in their own way, depending on the product each offers. Essentially, however, IT virtualisation is a way of combining and pooling hardware resources to more efficiently deliver software programs or storage space.

“Virtualisation separates applications from a physical reliance on hardware,” according to Eddie O’Rourke, sales director of virtualised systems provider Novosco. “It allows the running of IT systems on less hardware, reducing energy costs and carbon footprint, and enabling a lot more flexibility and dynamism in terms of how we run systems.”

O’Rourke says technology advances mean the concept of virtualisation is now open to all sizes of business. “It has made the transition from being experimental to the mainstream. Players such as VMware, Citrix, Microsoft and EMC have come out with their own mainstream virtualisation offerings. It has become a platform where people feel comfortable.”

There are two distinct ways in which companies can virtualise their systems. They can purchase virtualised solutions and implement them within their own IT department, or they can ask a partner to take over control of their newly virtualised systems, which are then hosted and maintained off-site.

“If the customer decides to virtualise their on-site infrastructure, there is a capital acquisition cost at the beginning which is clawed back over a number of years,” says O’Rourke. “Alternatively, the provider makes that investment on their behalf, and converts the customer’s physical infrastructure into a virtual one. Then you can buy everything as a service: hardware, software and services.”

Virtualisation can also open up mobility opportunities to staff who may move from site to site or access applications or storage from the road or from home. “At the front end the user can be anywhere and get access to any system at any time,” says O’Rourke.

Before leaping into virtualisation, however, businesses should be aware that the concept is still relatively new and evolving, and it may not work for every business in every situation.

Still, O’Rourke maintains that as the technology progresses, more and more SMEs will choose to virtualise part and then all of their IT function. “Smaller businesses can virtualise one or two applications so that they are available from anywhere on the internet, for example,” he says. “Once they feel comfortable they would introduce more systems into the virtualised environment.”

The future of virtualisation is in eliminating the difference, for the user or smaller business owner, between hardware machines and software applications, according to O’Rourke. “You can now virtualise someone’s entire server room and offer each element back as a service to the business.”

This is interesting for a couple of reasons: It will increase the size of servers being purchased - a 4U powerhouse can do much more than a blade, in terms of capacity.  So what becomes the expensive part, the license or the rackspace? The other reason, is that it puts it on a par with Microsoft Windows and Hyper-V, since the pricing model is the same.  I’m sure VMware will have an answer to this, otherwise the competition might start to get some traction.  Either way, competition like this is always good for the customer and will only ensure that virtualisation get’s further entrenched into IT infrastructures and datacentres that bit quicker.  And when the pricing differences become negligible, it will be all down to capabilities, that’s when we’ll really start to see some innovation…hopefully!

The vendor story

Microsoft - “We have a complete end to end management solution for all your assets both physical and virtual. Why invest in a point solution such as VMware when we can provide all of the important features at a fraction of the cost ? Our hypervisor is more efficient and smaller,  is architecturally superior and has the features that most customers need. The hypervisor is a commodity and the important elements in a virtualisation solution are really the management toolset.”

Citrix - “We have the most cost effective hypervisor on the market offering all of the really relevant advanced features that are missing from Microsoft, but provided by VMware, for an expensive premium.  Our technology set provides an integrated solution around virtualising, not just servers, but desktops and applications too. Our core product has strong pedigree in supporting non MS O/S and our partnership with MS guarantees the best all round fit no matter what server O/S you wish to virtualise.”

VMware - “We own this space, with a ten year track record and the most advanced product set that is available on the market today. Our hypervisor is the most cost effective because advanced features such as: VMotion, DRS, Host mgt and memory over-commit, provide a consolidation ratio which our competitors can only dream about. In fact, some of them haven’t shipped a product yet. We manage your complete virtual infrastructure from a single interface without the complexity of multiple consoles and technologies. Our reliability is legendary and our track record in solid dependable code release is enviable across the industry.”

Who has the answers?

• So as a customer what do you do?
• Who do you believe?
• Which vendor has the answers for your environment or your unique set of circumstances?

<Shameless Plug>
Of course, all of the vendors have valid points and they are all in a way correct. It really is a minefield trying to figure out the right infrastructure technology to use and manage your environment. What you need is a trusted advisor, an organisation with a unique field of vision across all the main infrastructure technology vendors who stands independently and can offer you the right advise based on your requirements without prejudice.

Often, the correct solution does not sit with a single vendor.  If I look at some of our recent projects, there is a common thread based on best fit, not vendor fit. We recently commenced a project to virtualise the server infrastructure of a local building society with branches throughout the country. The customer had diverse requirements in terms of desktop management, application deployment and a desire to improve their disaster recovery capability and at the same time reduce server footprint. In the end we deployed Citrix XenApp, Microsoft System Centre Ops Mgr, Softgrid and VMware ESX based on these requirements.
</Shameless Plug>

Make sure you choose wisely

Make sure when looking for a technology partner they have  a broad view of virtualisation and a track record in multi-vendor deployment. Rarely, if ever, does one size fit all.

This dynamic computing environment, implemented by Novosco, will provide SIAC with a flexible and resilient backed infrastructure and will allow the construction leader to enjoy the benefits of a virtualised environment, including ease of management, increased server utilisation, increased availability and recoverability, as well as simple and effective disaster recovery.

“From the outside, the construction industry looks very traditional, however it is in fact large scale engineering at its most agile,” says Eamonn Buckley, group IS & T manager for SIAC Construction Ltd.

“Construction sites are in effect once-off factories with portacabins sometimes housing up to 50 staff with desktops. SIAC, one of Ireland’s largest construction companies, has over 500 IT users at locations ranging from a site office in Inishmean to a steel plant in Brighton.”

The solution enhances resilience and availability at SIAC’s primary site by utilising an ESX HA and DRS cluster which is back ended with a fiber-attached EMC storage array. This platform protects against single component failure and server failure and in addition provides for the most optimal use of server resources at the primary site.

Using the features of VMware VI3, live servers can be moved from one piece of server hardware to another to facilitate maintenance as well as to make maximum use of server resources.

Eddie O’Rourke, Sales Director with Novosco, was quick to point out the benefits of the project, “SIAC have managed to reduce the physical server footprint of their production infrastructure from 30 down to 3.  This has a dramatic and positive impact on the total cost of ownership of their IT infrastructure as a whole.”

“The entire swap out of SIAC’s enterprise Windows servers was achieved within six months, including Exchange and Active Directory upgrades, with a business impact of less than two hours.  In addition, by using live migration technology, production servers never need to go offline, so routine maintenance can be carried out during normal working hours.  This was a strategic project, meaning that the majority of SIAC’s server infrastructure now runs on VMware, including mission critical systems such as ERP and email messaging.  We hope to see the solution pay for itself within nine months”

All servers are now resilient using VMware’s High availability features. VizionCore delivered the back-up solution and the two-hourly replication solution to the DR site.  DR testing of key functionality such as Exchange is easily achieved by bringing up the replicated Exchange server on the DR site within a non-live virtual switch.  VMware VirtualCenter also delivered the added benefit of an excellent remote management tool for SIAC servers.

At the DR site, where the emphasis is on recovery in the event of a disaster, a single ESX host with another EMC CX SAN is implemented. This DR implementation was designed to provide enough storage to house Virtual machine images and allow SIAC to take advantage of replication facilities while also providing SIAC with an environment that can be used to test and develop for future services. As virtual machines were encapsulated into a small number of files, backup and recovery was simplified.

For the purposes of Disaster Recovery, copies of the virtual machine files are required at an offsite location. esxReplicator allows the replication of live virtual machines from one ESX Host to another without the need to maintain a live virtual machine on the destination saving on licensing costs and providing a simple, effective and controllable DR model.

About SIAC

Founded in 1913, SIAC is one of Ireland’s largest contractors and have built a strong reputation and growing business in Ireland and the UK.

Dublin, Ireland, dateline… Energy consumption is currently the number one cost for datacentres and virtualisation could be the key to make Irish IT Industry more energy efficient, according to David McAuley, Energy Management expert with Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI).

McAuley spoke at Novosco’s Virtualisation Briefing hosted by The Conrad Hotel, in Dublin, on Thursday 13th February. SEI is a non-profit organization created to help reduce energy and carbon footprint in Ireland.

“Our main goal is to promote sustainable energy through three key elements. The first one and most important is energy efficiency; secondly, integration and innovation, and also renewables and sustainable energy,” he explained.

The event addressed the key benefits of Virtualisation 2.0 and focused on how virtualisation can help companies achieve greater levels of availability and resilience, reduce the cost of managing and maintaining desktop infrastructure by 40% and roll out new applications, but also reduce the power consumption and carbon footprint of IT.

“From an energy point of view, virtualisation has huge potential to have an impact in the industry, since IT is growing so fast. It is a fantastic solution to prevent the increase of energy consumption because it reduces the core energy requirements. By doing this, the impacts of support system inefficiencies are kept to a minimum. This is a key principle in energy management,” he adds.

SEI offers services for businesses interested in receiving advice about energy efficiency. “It is all about optimizing the amount of energy you need. Many datacentres at the moment don’t need as much energy as they use. From this point of view, virtualization is a fantastic technology. If we can have the same system generating less heat, needing less cooling and doing the same job or even doubling the amount or work, this is a great step towards energy efficiency and it has great potential to have huge impact in the carbon emissions coming from the IT industry.”

Exact statistics on energy usage in the IT industry in Ireland are not available yet, according to McAuley. “We have only started looking at the IT industry in particular recently but data from elsewhere tells us that energy costs can be 60% of the data centre operating cost. In the US, almost 2% of the total use of electricity in the country comes from the IT industry and it has doubled since 2001/02, due to the fast increasing number of applications available. This is a very large amount of energy.”

SEI estimates it is easy for businesses to reduce 20% of their energy costs (and therefore their carbon emissions) applying some basic principles of good usage. With technologies like virtualisation, efficiency (value added for energy used) could be improved by 50%.

“I would be cautious on how much energy datacentres can save. Virtualisation is a phenomenal solution but, in the case of IT businesses, we also need to take into account factors like the age of the technology and the existing infrastructure, but it could reach 50%, if we could double the amount of work using with the same energy,” he adds.

“For a datacentre, energy is the number one cost but companies need to know how much it is costing them, in order to set targets and know where they are going energy-wise.”

For more information:

Jillian Godsil, Practice PR & Events, +353 (0) 53 94 29676

The core Novosco message of Virtualisation and reducing energy consumption was very well received by the audience and press. In fact, Patrick McAliskey, our Managing Director was quoted on the radio alongside HP Group Manager, Brad Kirby who was hosting another event at the Waterfront on the same day.

Listen here

Below are a selection photographs taken on the day.

Today sees the launch of a new and exciting IT virtualisation firm to serve the All-Island market. Novosco, a derivative of two Latin words meaning ‘new understanding’ is the result of the merger of two of Northern Ireland’s most successful IT solutions companies.

In May of this year Real Time Systems Ltd (RTSL) and 4sol joined forces in what was seen as an exciting and innovative partnership. Both companies saw huge potential in working together to create a stronger IT company capable of mounting a serious assault on the all Ireland IT infrastructure and integration marketplace.

Although only operating for a matter of months Novosco has already chalked up a number of significant contact wins totalling £600,000, with clients of the calibre of Balcas, Quinn Group and Acheson and Glover.

Commenting at the launch, Patrick McAliskey, Managing Director at Novosco said, “I am thrilled at the way the two companies have come together and although we have only been in operation for a short while, the level of new business we have won has been tremendous. I believe this is a direct result of the synergies and skills that were carried through from both RTSL and 4sol. These have enabled us to deliver clear benefits to our existing clients, generate new business and move forward with a common vision.”

“Novosco currently employs 35 people in Northern Ireland we are working closely with Invest NI exploring how best the two organisations can work together in the future to maximise the potential for growth in export markets. The majority of the current employees are highly qualified technical staff. In addition, we will be relocating to new business premises to facilitate Novosco’s future expansion plans.”

John Lennon, Business Development Director at Novosco commented, “When we took the decision to merge, I was confident it was the best option for both organisations and this has certainly been the case. Everyone involved has pulled together, allowing us to move forward in a positive direction.”

Mr. Lennon continued, “At the time of our merger announcement we indicated our intension to operate on an All-Island basis and I am happy to confirm we now have fully functioning business premises in Belfast and Dublin serving clients on both sides of the border. The ICT marketplace throughout Ireland has developed rapidly over recent years. Our clients are demanding the best products, services and advice in order to support their plans for growth and development. I believe our decision to operate in this manner clearly demonstrates our commitment to the Irish marketplace and is one that will undoubtedly benefit the company.”

For further information contact Gareth Colhoun (07733304415) or 028 9039 3837 or by email: g.colhoun@morrowcommunications.com

From the site, “This blog was formed as an external documentation hub for the implementation of a VMWare Virtual Infrastructure. The implementation is an actual project that has been in preparation for a couple of months, mostly figuring out what we would like to do and with what kind of equipment and software while participating in the beta of VMWare ESX Server 3 and VirtualCenter 2. It is this experience and our future experiences with the actual migration that I want to share through this blog. ”

It’s quite an interesting blog.  He even got support from Platespin!

20 New Hi tech jobs to be created

Two of Ireland’s most successful indigenous IT companies, Real Time Systems Ltd (RTSL) and 4sol Ltd. today (Tuesday 1 May 2007) announced the merger of their business operations. This merger will create Ireland’s leading partner for Citrix, Microsoft and VMware.

Left to right: John Lennon, Managing Director at 4sol, Anne Hughes, Operations Director at RTSL, Simon Hamilton, Operations Director at 4sol, Patrick McAliskey, Managing Director at RTSL and Rosi Kirker, Business Development Director at RTSL

Business operations are due to move to new purpose-built premises in the coming months and staff numbers will increase from 40 to 60 within 12 months. The new company will be rebranded under a new identity and will be supported by a business strategy providing continued growth on an all-Ireland basis.

Commenting on the merger, RTSL’s Managing Director, Patrick McAliskey said, “In line with our vision, this merger enables us to deliver unique business value to our existing and potential customers. Both companies are perfectly aligned, have a common vision and share the same tradition of excellence. I am very excited about the merger and the opportunities this will bring to all our stakeholders”.

John Lennon, Managing Director at 4sol, commented, “The skill-set of the new company will create an unrivalled capability to deliver leading edge solutions in the Irish market place. This merger will allow us to provide solutions to customers who truly believe that technology is an asset”.

John continued by saying “This is a very exciting move for all of us and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate both sets of staff, who have responded very positively to the news and I very much look forward to working with them all in developing our business.”

It is anticipated that 20 new hi tech jobs will be created as a result of this merger. At present staffing numbers total 40 but will increase to 60 within the next 12 months.

About RTSL

RTSL is one of Northern Ireland’s premier access infrastructure solutions providers based in Carryduff. RTSL employs 24 highly skilled and experienced staff and is Northern Ireland’s only Citrix Platinum Partner. RTSL first began business in 1994 and was founded by Patrick McAliskey and David Hughes. During this time the company has worked hard to establish itself and has enjoyed steady market growth as a result. In 2006, and for the seventh consecutive year, Real Time Systems Limited (RTSL) was named in the Fast 50 list of Ireland’s fastest-growing technology companies. The company has an impressive list of customers across Ireland, ranging from SME’s to household brands in the private sector, to major central government and security departments.

About 4sol

4sol is a technology solutions company with offices in Belfast and Dublin and is the highest certified indigenous Microsoft Gold Partner in Ireland. 4sol employs 16 highly skilled staff members responsible for delivering a range of infrastructure and business intelligence solutions. 4sol was founded in 2002 by John Lennon and Simon Hamilton and to date has enjoyed great success within the public and private sector. The company has worked with many of the world’s largest corporate organisations on a variety of projects.

For more information (press only), please contact
Northern Ireland: Kieran Donnelly or Gareth Colhoun, Morrow Communications, Tel: +44 (0) 28 9039 3837
Ireland: Jillian Godsil, Practice PR, Tel: +353 (0) 53 9429676