Built-in simplicity PacLib Group increases hardware utilization from 10 to 60 percent with a virtualized infrastructure based on Microsoft Hyper-V technology and Dell hardware

customer proFile Country: Australia

Industry: Real Estate

Founded: 1994

number oF employees: 140

Web Address: www.paclib.com

challenge

Accommodate company growth by creating a flexible, scalable, robust, and energy-efficient infrastructure that is easy to manage and that delivers a high return on investment.

solution

PacLib Group’s IT team created a virtualized infrastructure by running Microsoft® Windows Server® 2008 with Hyper-V™ technology on Dell™ PowerEdge™ servers supported by Dell EqualLogic™ storage area networks (SANs) and a Dell tape library.

BeneFitsGet It Faster

Deployed the new infrastructure in less •than one month

run It better

Increased server utilization from 10 to •60 percent

Decreased time for routine IT tasks from •hours to minutes

Accelerated deployment of new •applications from two weeks to one hour

Created a robust, multilayered infrastruc-•ture that delivers high availability

Grow It smarter

•AvoidednearlyAU$50,000incostsbyselecting a Microsoft virtualization

solution for its Dell PowerEdge servers

•Providedsufficientserverandstorage capacity for additional company growth

•SavedmorethanAU$10,000incooling costs

Once a small company with 20 employees, PacLib Group today is one of the largest and most successful privately owned industrial development firms in Australia’s state of New South Wales. The company comprises seven subsidiary businesses with 140 employees who provide planning, project management, civil engineering, construction, storage, and other services for some of the state’s largest design and construct projects. Much of the company’s growth has occurred in just the last three years, with PacLib Group gaining business and adding employees rapidly.

SOLUTIONSBACKUP/RECOVERY/ARCHIVING•CONSOLIDATION•GREENCOMPUTING•VIRTUALIZATION•

That fast growth forced the company’s IT group to rethink its IT infrastructure, which included 16 physical servers running a range of Microsoft applications, including Microsoft Exchange e-mail and Microsoft SharePoint® Server 2007. At the same time, the IT group supported specialized architecture and engineering applications, such as AutoCAD® Revit® Architecture Suite and 12d Model software, which run on Dell workstations, desktops, and laptops. “As we’ve acquired business and hired more employees, we’ve added applications to enhance worker productivity and integrated solutions to accommodate our increasingly mobile workforce,” says David Furey, IT manager at PacLib Group. “But the result was a complex infrastructure that was difficult to manage. We also had several underutilized servers that were not providing a strong return on investment. We needed a more consolidated infrastructure that could simplify IT while still providing the flexibility to respond to new requests and the scalability to support a growing business.”

Though the IT group wanted simplicity, they could not sacrifice system availability. “With our employees managing real estate development projects and overseeing building construction, they need continual access to information and communications tools,” says Furey. “We needed a robust infrastructure that could help minimize downtime and better protect our data from loss.”

The new infrastructure also had to offer a stronger return on investment. “We found that ourserverswereonly5to10percentutilized,”says Furey. “We wanted to make better use of our hardware resources.”

The IT group also saw opportunities to develop a greener infrastructure. “As a property development firm, we are extremely conscious about the environmental impact of our work,” says Furey. “We designed and built the energy-efficient building that our company uses, and it has earned a Green Star design rating of 4 stars. We wanted to build an energy-efficient infrastructure that could support our corporate vision for environmental responsibility.”

pacliB group saves nearly au$50,000 By virtualizing with microsoFtThe PacLib Group IT team chose to build a virtualized infrastructure to provide flexibility, simplicity, scalability, and increased server utilization while also containing energy use. The team evaluated several virtualization software options before selecting Microsoft Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V technology. “We nearly purchased another virtualization solution, but then Microsoft released a beta version of Hyper-V,” says Furey. “Our staff was very familiar with Microsoft products, and we liked the idea that we could save the time and resources required to learn a new environment.”

Ultimately,thecomparativecostoftheMicrosoftsolution sealed the deal. “When we compared the cost of adopting Hyper-V versus the other solution, it was an easy decision. Acquiring the appropriate licenses and migrating the data for the other solution would have cost us approximately AU$50,000,”saysFurey.“TorunHyper-V,weinitially used Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise, which includes four Hyper-V licenses. AdditionalHyper-VlicensescostonlyAU$49.Thatis a huge cost savings for the business.”

how it worKs

hardware

Dell• ™ PowerEdge™2950and1950 servers with the Intel® Xeon® processor 5300and5400series

Dell EqualLogic• ™PS5000Xstorageareanetwork (SAN)

Dell PowerVault• ™ LTO-122T tape library

Dell PowerConnect• ™5448and6248PEthernet switches

Dell OptiPlex• ™745and755desktops

Dell Latitude• ™E6400andD630notebooks

Dell Precision• ™M4300,M90,andM65mobile workstations

soFtware

12d Model•

AutoCAD• ® Revit® Architecture Suite 9.0

Microsoft• ® Exchange 2007

Microsoft SharePoint• ® Server 2007

Microsoft SQL Server• ®2005

Microsoft System Center management •software

Microsoft System Center Configuration –Manager 2007

Microsoft System Center Data –Protection Manager 2007

Microsoft System Center Operations –Manager 2007

Microsoft System Center Virtual –Machine Manager 2008

Microsoft Windows Server• ® 2008 with Hyper-V™ technology

“the intel Xeon processors with intel virtualization technology give us the outstanding perFormance we need For hosting a virtualized environment with numerous virtual machines.”David Furey, IT manager, PacLib Group

“we have always Been happy with the perFormance and reliaBility oF dell hardware, so we had no hesitation in choosing dell poweredge servers to support our virtualized environment.”David Furey, IT manager, PacLib Group

dell servers provide the Foundation For the virtualized environment“We have been a Dell shop for a long time,” says Furey. “We’ve used Dell PowerEdge servers as well as Dell OptiPlex desktops and Dell Latitude laptops. We have always been happy with the performance and reliability of Dell hardware, so we had no hesitation in choosing Dell PowerEdge servers to support our virtualized environment.”

The IT group selected Dell PowerEdge servers with the Intel® Xeon®processor5300and5400seriesfor the new environment. “To consolidate all of our applications on a small number of physical servers, we need superior processor performance,” says Furey. “The Intel Xeon processors with Intel Virtualization Technology give us the outstanding performance we need for hosting a virtualized environment with numerous virtual machines.”

pacliB group deploys the new environment in less than one monthOften an early adopter of new technologies, the IT group updated to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and then installed a beta version of Hyper-V on new andexistingDellPowerEdge2950andPowerEdge1950serversjustweeksafterthesoftwarewasreleased. “The combination of Hyper-V and the Dell PowerEdge servers was rock solid—we had zero issues. Dell had released firmware updates to support Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V, and that helped ensure stability. We were able to move Hyper-V to production within a few weeks,” says Furey. “In under a month, we had our core applications, including Microsoft Exchange 2007, Microsoft SQL Server 2005,andMicrosoftSharePoint2007,allupandrunning on the new environment. It was so easy to do, we did it all without outside assistance.”

dell equallogic san provides simple, scalaBle storage For the new environmentAfter evaluating several storage solutions to support the virtualized servers, the IT group replaced its direct attach storage with a Dell EqualLogicPS5000XSAN.Furey’steamusesDell PowerConnect™5548andPowerConnect6248P Ethernet switches to make the network connections with this Internet SCSI (iSCSI) SAN.

The Dell EqualLogic SAN provides four terabytes of storage with the performance, scalability, and system availability that the PacLib team required. “First and foremost, we needed a solution that could deliver sufficient I/O performance to support the virtual servers,” says Furey. “We tested multiple solutions, and the Dell EqualLogic SAN clearly came out ahead. Now that it’s up and running, we are usingonly25percentofthenetworkcapacityoftheSAN—we have plenty of room for I/O growth.”

The IT group can also add storage capacity quickly. “Scaling storage is incredibly simple with the Dell EqualLogic SAN,” continues Furey. “We simply plug in a new array and we’re done. The SAN automatically integrates the new disks without requiring any additional configuration work. We can even add arrays with lower-cost disks to save money. Because the storage is virtualized, the SAN remains one solution for us to manage and one centralized pool of storage for users.”

The Dell EqualLogic SAN is now part of a redundant, multitiered IT environment that helps to ensure high system availability and easy disaster recovery. “We have a clustered Hyper-V environment providing high-availability plus replication of Exchange and SQL data to our disaster recovery site,” says Furey. “We also use Microsoft

System Center and Microsoft Data Protection Manager software to take frequent snapshots of data. We use a deduplication system for short-term storage of snapshots and then back up that data to our Dell PowerVault LTO-122T tape library for long-term storage. Whether there is a disk failure or a full-fledged disaster, we know that we can keep the company’s real estate projects moving.”

new environment increases utilization From 10 to 60 percentBy running 14 virtual machines on four physical Dell PowerEdge servers, the IT group is making much better use of its hardware resources. “We’veincreasedserverutilizationfrom5to10percent to approximately 60 percent,” says Furey. “By using Microsoft Hyper-V on Dell PowerEdge servers, we can achieve better return on our investment and save thousands on the acquisition of new servers.”

virtualization enaBles the company to stay green and save au$10,000 on coolingWith less hardware in its data center, the company is also saving money on power, cooling, and real estate. According to a calculation provided by a Microsoft reporting tool, the company stands to save more than AU$100,000peryearinenergycostswhilereducing carbon emissions substantially. The IT group has already saved money by avoiding the purchase of a new air conditioning unit forthedatacenter.“WesavedAU$10,000oncooling by running fewer energy-efficient Dell PowerEdge servers,” says Furey. “We are also able to use one less rack for hardware. We can offer that space to another business unit and reduce our IT operating budget.”

SiMPLiFy your totaL SoLution at DELL.CoM/SimplifyJune2009.©2009Dell,Inc.DellisatrademarkofDellInc.Intel,theIntellogo,andIntelXeonareregisteredtrademarksofIntelCorporationoritssubsidiariesintheUnitedStatesandothercountries.Microsoft,theMicrosoftlogo,andWindowsareregisteredtrademarksofMicrosoftCorporationintheUnitedStatesand/orothercountries.Othertrademarksand trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marks and names or their products. This case study is for informational purposes only. DELLMAKESNOWARRANTIES,EXPRESSORIMPLIED,INTHISCASESTUDY.10007766

Importantly, the new environment also adheres to the company’s green objectives. “Running a virtualized environment on energy-efficient Dell PowerEdge servers helps us reduce carbon emissions significantly. According to an analysis by VMware, moving from 16 physical servers to 4 was like taking eight cars off the road for a year,” says Furey. “This new virtualized environment is a perfect fit with our goals of promoting environmentally responsible design and construction.”

ease oF management reduces maintenance time From hours to minutesThe new environment has also helped the small IT group reduce the time and resources spent on routine administrative tasks. “It used to take 20 minutes to reboot each physical server. As a result, routine patching and updating tasks could take hours. We worked overnight to avoid disrupting users,” says Furey. “Today we can reboot a virtual server in less than five minutes so we can perform a patch over the lunch hour, and nobody notices. Our IT group can now spend more time and energy on projects that directly support the business.”

Microsoft software plays a key role in managing the Dell hardware–based environment. “Microsoft System Center management software gives us a comprehensive set of tools for managing the data center and our desktops as well,” says Furey. “We can accomplish essential tasks quickly, and without risking business continuity.”

virtualization accelerates new server deployment From two weeKs to one hourThe IT group can also deploy new servers rapidly. “It might take us two weeks to order, unpack, and configure a new physical server,” says Furey. “But in the virtualized environment, we can set up a new application in under an hour. Consequently, we can be much more responsive to new requests.”

Furey’s team has also reduced the costs of testing new applications. “We frequently evaluate new software that can help us streamline some IT or business function,” says Furey. “We no longer have to buy and maintain physical servers for testing. We can test new applications easily and cost-effectively in the virtualized environment, and we move them into production much more rapidly than before.”

pacliB group is poised For additional growthWith the newly virtualized, Dell-based infrastructure in place, the company is now better prepared for new business opportunities and additional employees. “If we hadn’t moved to the virtualized infrastructure we could have easily had more than 20 underutilized servers in our data center today,” says Furey. “Instead we created a flexible, scalable, robust, and easy-to-manage infrastructure that can help our business keep building and growing.”

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