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VMware & NetApp Case Study - Transport
Birmingham Airport
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Birmingham Airport transforms IT with server estate
virtualisation
“The virtualisation
project with Centralis was one of the first major projects we
have conducted that has not only significantly improved the way
in which IT services are delivered across BHX, but which has
also benefited the IT department internally.”
Wayne Smith, Head of
Information Services, Birmingham Airport
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Case Study
Features: VMware vSphere, NetApp & Centralis Consultancy
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Summary
Birmingham Airport, the UK’s second biggest airport
outside of London, recently enlisted Centralis to help it upgrade its
existing server infrastructure. The airport’s Information Services team
wanted to refresh its existing IT systems in order to improve efficiency
and cut down energy costs. Thanks to the solution implemented by
Centralis, based on VMware’s vSphere 4 and NetApp storage technologies,
Birmingham Airport was able to cut energy consumption by 40 per cent,
and expects a ROI within three years.
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“ The main
business driver was one of server replacement, but the
possibility of replacing a large number of physical servers
caused us to look at more modern technology such as
virtualisation...
A further
by-product of the installation was an increased DR capability,
which meant that we did not need a standby server for all of our
key systems. "
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Wayne Smith, Head of Information Services, Birmingham Airport
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About the
Customer
Birmingham Airport is the UK’s second largest airport
outside of London. As the West Midland’s principal international
gateway, Birmingham Airport connects passengers to over 400 locations
worldwide, and handled 9.09 million terminal passengers during 2009.
Major stakeholders include the seven West Midlands District Councils and
Airport Group Investments Ltd.
With around 8 million people living within an hour’s
drive, Birmingham Airport aims to increase the number of passengers it
attracts from its local catchment area, and is following a ‘Master Plan’
for sustainable development in respect of the UK government’s
projections for growth in aviation demand.
Running up to 2030, the airport’s objective is to
balance the economic and social benefits of development with the need to
control and mitigate environmental impacts, whilst supporting
Birmingham’s ambitions to be a truly global city and world class
destination.
The
Challenge
Birmingham Airport was looking to conduct a major
technology refresh of its server estate, improve efficiencies, cut
costs, and position for a return to growth. Like many large commercial
sites, servers had been procured over time to support specific tasks and
projects, resulting in an estate employing different operating systems
(OS) and hardware builds. Conducting updates and applying patches was
therefore a complex and time-consuming process, whilst additional
hardware would often have to be commissioned to support new
applications.
“The main business driver was one of server
replacement, but the possibility of replacing a large number of physical
servers caused us to look at more modern technology such as
virtualisation,” says Smith. “The older servers were not the most energy
efficient (compared with today’s standards), and the airport takes its
environmental role very seriously. It has an on-going programme of
energy reduction in place, and this project supported the virtualisation
as it offered us considerable energy savings, both directly in powering
the servers, and in cooling the two data centres.”
According to Smith, these two elements alone provided
the IS department with a strong business case, even before benefits such
as easier management and increased flexibility were considered. “A
further by-product of the installation was an increased DR capability,
which meant that we did not need a standby server for all of our key
systems (which would almost double the hardware requirement in some
areas).”
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" We anticipate realising ROI within three years, and have already seen
a 40 per cent reduction in energy usage...
“The team at Centralis were extremely professional. The design exercise
helped us mitigate risk, agree deliverables, and ensured both parties
managed the project effectively and in accordance with SLAs.”
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Wayne Smith, Head of Information Services, Birmingham Airport
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The Centralis
Solution
Initially, Birmingham Airport had commissioned one of
its existing IS suppliers to assess the requirements for its
virtualisation and agility project. However, Birmingham subsequently
commissioned independent application and desktop delivery specialist
Centralis on the strength of its proven methodology and expertise in
virtualised solutions. “Having met with Centralis, we recognised that
the methodology it has developed is extremely important, and this gave
Centralis the edge over other suppliers,” confirms Smith.
Centralis adopts a multi-stage approach to a project,
with a focus on upfront assessment and solution design, as well as
ensuring that the rigours of best practice are balanced with budget
demands. “A consistent, logical and structured approach to a project
reduces risk and delivers a working solution on time, on budget, and on
spec.,” states Bob Gordon, senior account manager, Centralis. “Given the
mission-critical nature of Birmingham’s applications, minimum disruption
to services was crucial to maintaining internal SLAs, and called for
careful planning in terms of migration.”
Working closely with Smith and Birmingham Airport’s
IS team, Centralis delivered a solution based on VMware’s vSphere 4 and
NetApp storage, together with some additional VMware components
including Site Recovery Manager. The latter provides a designed and
quickly executable means of restarting critical services from
alternative sites. More than 40 Microsoft Windows servers were
virtualised and spread across six vSphere ESX hosts, which are
interconnected via a Gigabit link and sized to allow all Tier 1 and 2
systems to be run in three hosts.
A NetApp storage unit is located at each data centre
to not only host the virtual machines (VMs) and user data, but to
replicate data from one end of the solution to the other in both
directions, meaning key services can be recovered at either side.
Results
The virtualisation and agility project at Birmingham Airport was
completed within three months, and has delivered significant financial
and operational benefits, with Birmingham’s virtualised server
infrastructure serving some 500 staff – although FIDS is sold to a large
number of third-parties, including airport tenants, and web-based
service providers. “We anticipate realising ROI within three years, and
have already seen a 40 per cent reduction in energy usage,” states
Birmingham Airport’s Smith. “The team at Centralis were extremely
professional. The design exercise helped us mitigate risk, agree
deliverables, and ensured both parties managed the project effectively
and in accordance with SLAs.”
The effectiveness of Birmingham Airport’s DR contingency has also
been endorsed. Following a burst heating pipe in one of the data
centres, Tier 1 systems were restored within 1-2 hours, and Tier 2-3
systems by the next day. “Previously, recovery could have taken more
than 12 hours just for Tier 1 systems,” continues Smith. “Having a
virtualised environment meant that we could easily ‘move’ the virtual
servers from that data centre, to our other data centre, and get all of
the Tier 1 systems back up in a short time as per our SLA.”
Removal of disparate hardware and OS means Birmingham Airport now has
a consistent Microsoft Windows platform throughout its server estate,
which delivers a lower cost of administration, and greatly accelerated
backup capabilities. Furthermore, the addition of new systems or
applications is now enabled by creating a VM rather than buying a new
physical server. Smith estimates that the project delivers a computing
capacity increase of 20 per cent, which will meet Birmingham’s needs
over the next three years, and provide a stepping stone to cloud
computing. “My dream is to never have to buy a server again,” he says.
“By migrating physical host servers one by one, it may be possible to
have all our computing power delivered by the cloud.”
The IS department is now well placed to support the demands of
Birmingham Airport’s Master Plan. “As the airport grows, we can easily
expand our virtual platform with additional storage or VM hosts. Rather
than buying one server per application, we can respond quickly to
changes by using existing spare capacity, resulting in a more responsive
IS service to the airport,” he concludes.
Click here to watch our video case study of Wayne Smith from
Birmingham Airport talking about how Centralis transformed the way they
deliver IT to the organisation.
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