The Prudential is backing server virtualisation
technology with a decision to replace its department individual
servers with VMware run on shared centralised
servers.
Shared eight-way Hewlett-Packard Proliant servers running VMware
will move the company towards its utility computing goal. It is
already using VMware to centralise 800 desktops onto two-way
servers, and has replaced 80 development servers with a pair of
eight-way systems.
The decision is part of a strategy of consolidation and
standardisation, said Andy Ruby, head of infrastructure and design
for the Pru's IT subsidiary PruTech. "We needed to refresh the
hardware, the choice was to do like-for-like or adopt a new model,
with extra short term costs but long term benefits." he said.
"Server consolidation pays for itself versus like-for-like.
"The ultimate aim is to get to true utility. To an extent I can
do that internally, but to get to true utility I need the
equivalent of the National Grid - shared services along bureau
lines, with the suppliers taking the risk."
In the meantime, he is doing what he can to provide utility
computing at a local level. PruTech's development servers were
moved over first to prove that consolidating on VMware was viable:
"We have now implemented two more eight-way servers and plan to get
20 production servers on each."
Ruby added that in the past his team could spend a day building
a server that was needed only because some departmental application
required its own private host, and would probably then peak at one
percent CPU utilisation.
Now, the same can be achieved faster and more efficiently - and
if downtime is needed, he can use VMware's Vmotion software to move
a running virtual server from one physical machine to another.
"We have also virtualised around 800 desktops to 70 two-way
servers running VMWare in Scotland and Reading, at six users per
processor," he confirmed. The problem here was that staff at the
Pru's call centre in Mumbai (Bombay) could not use the normal
thick-client Windows applications against its back-office systems
because of latency on the long distance network.
"We had to get the Windows apps closer to the servers, but one
or two of them didn't work on Citrix Systems. We couldn't put 100
PCs in the datacentre so it was a choice between PC blades and
VMWare," Ruby said.
The solution was to use virtual PCs running on two-way servers
in the UK datacentres, and Windows XP's terminal services on PCs in
Mumbai. "Thin clients would have been better," he added, "but there
was no time and we wanted minimum risk."
HP said that some forms of server virtualisation are already
widely used at the high end, with anything up to 80% of 16-way
servers using hard or soft partitioning. Thomas Ullrich, marketing
director for HP's EMEA customer solutions group, acknowledged that
they are a small part of the total market, but said that VMware
allows users of smaller servers to consider virtualisation
too.
Indeed, server virtualisation is essential if enterprises are to
achieve capacity on demand and utility computing, according to IDC
server analyst Thomas Meyer. He said it will take years to feed
through, though. "We are there with virtualisation, but I'd
question how many people are using it," he said. "It's a $250m
(£139m) market now and will be $1.7bn by 2008 - but there will
still be alternatives in 2008 because people move at a different
pace."
This suspicion that virtualisation remains a well-known but
unused technology at the moment, despite efforts by big
manufacturers, was re-iterated recently by several analysts and big
firms that are a natural target for virtualisation suppliers.
Bryan Betts writes for Techworld