Case Study

Permal build environment based on VMware ESX virtualisation technology

In the middle of 2006, Permal approached Centralis to build a development environment based on VMware ESX virtualisation technology. The requirement was to create a virtual system which was an exact a copy of their production environment to be used for testing purposes.

Overview

	Centralis demonstrated a professional approach to planning and implementing the virtualised solution, overcoming any technical challenge presented to them and delivering to a tight timescale.
	Steve Conway, IT Manager Permal Investment Management Services Ltd.

The project was to to manage the design, build and implementation of a virtual system which was a copy of the Permal Group's production environment and could then be used for testing purposes.

The Customer

With over thirty years of investment management experience, the Permal Group provides advisory, management and monitoring services with approximately $25 billion in assets. The Permal Group has principal offices in New York, London, and Singapore.

VMware ESX virtualisation

In the middle of 2006, Permal approached Centralis to build a development environment based on VMware ESX virtualisation technology. The requirement was to create a virtual system which was an exact a copy of their production environment to be used for testing purposes.

Centralis, a VMware Enterprise VIP and Consulting Partner offered to manage the design, build and implementation of this new environment, based upon hardware provided by Permal. The new environment was to be located alongside Permal’s production environment, at SunGard’s London Technology Centre.

Centralis built two ESX servers and used VMware’s P2V Assistant utility to migrate the existing eight physical production servers onto the ESX boxes, using a Terminal Services server to act as a portal to the development environment.

Migration

Due to the need to ensure that physical server content was not changing during the migration, much of the work was carried out during out-of-service hours, requiring careful benchmarking of server capacity and projected migration times.

After migration was complete, Centralis performed initial testing of the virtualised environment and produced documentation covering the build of the ESX servers, VMWare P2V processes and an operators guide to starting and stopping Virtual Machines for testing purposes.

The project was completed to tight timescales and to budget and Steve Conway, IT Manager for Permal Investment Management Services Ltd. said "At every stage Centralis demonstrated a professional approach to planning and implementing the virtualised solution, overcoming any technical challenge presented to them and delivering to a tight timescale."


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