The Canadian Securities Institute (CSI Global Education Inc.) says its adoption of server virtualization technology has helped it to dramatically reduce the number of physical servers it uses, while providing e-learning services to some 40,000 students.
Server virtualization software from Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMWare Inc. has helped CSI to consolidate its operating systems and cut down the number of its physical servers from 97 to 62.
The virtualization initiative was spurred by the institute's plans to upgrade its Web-based teaching software and phase out older hardware, according to Randy Pond, director of IT at CSI. He said CSI is upgrading from version 4.0 to 6.0 of its Web Course Tool (WebCT) e-learning software from Blackboard Inc. of Washington, DC.
When the WebCT 6.0 arrives, it will run on two recently acquired 2850 PowerEdge Servers from Dell Inc. of Round Rock, Texas. Another PowerEdge machine will be used as a development server, while a fourth is used to run other applications.
These four new servers will take over the workload of 35 older units that have reached their end of life cycle, said Pond.
He said VMWare ESX virtualization software layered over the PowerEdge servers is able to run multiple instances of WebCT 4.0 to cover the needs of the CSI's 40,000 students.
Within CSI there were some pockets of resistance that held on to the one-server, one-application standard. But IT administrators soon found out that the new software allowed them to set up virtual servers in one day and deploy operating systems (OS) within minutes.
"They just needed to get their minds around the idea of virtualization. When they saw what it could do, it blew them away," said Pond.
CSI began trials with the servers and virtualization software last year. The institute tested the technology for 60 days in its financial and accounting departments, and finally went live, deploying the software in critical areas last November.
"We retired 35 physical servers and hope to [cut] another 15 units in the near future," Pond said.
John Schouten, enterprise technologist for Dell Canada Inc. in North York, Ont. said the traditional one-server, one-application model server utilizes only five to 15 percent of a server's capacity. "By stacking multiple OS and applications over one virtualized machine you boost that server's utility by 75 to 90 percent."
Schouten said faster processors, higher interconnect speeds and applications supporting 64-bit computing are driving innovations in the virtualization field.
It is still possible to run multiple applications in a non-virtualized server, but this could cause performance issues, he said. "You don't want your authentication system coexisting with you Web server and security system. You want to isolate them".
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