Global System Services Corporation

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When you're a small company in a world of giants, you have to be nimble and efficient. Global System Services Corporation (GSS) knows all about it. This software and consulting firm works for some of the largest global enterprises-for example, GE Capital, Motorola and Hearst Corporation-helping them to upgrade and maintain their messaging infrastructures. GSS has expertise in migrating clients from other messaging and collaboration platforms to Sun Java System Messaging Server, Sun Java System Calendar Server, Sun Java System Directory Server and other components of the Sun Java Enterprise System.

Recently, GSS took a hard look at its own infrastructure, in particular, its main testing lab. The number of servers had grown to the point where cooling had become a problem. Now the company's expanding business required two new quality assurance (QA) environments, potentially adding 12 new systems using the "one application, one server" model. To keep growing, GSS had to choose between leasing additional space and purchasing a dozen new servers-or consolidating and virtualizing its server population.

It chose the latter. GSS already had been using VMware in a limited way in its training environment. Its virtualization capabilities provided the right software environment for consolidation, allowing GSS to run multiple applications on a single server without fear of interfering with each other.

However, GSS' a single-processor Intel platform lacked the necessary horsepower. The company evaluated a number of systems, including some based on Intel dual-core processors, before deciding on the Sun Fire X4200 server.

Powered by two dual-core AMD Opteron processors, the Sun Fire X4200 server running Solaris 10 OS and VMware proved to be the ideal platform for GSS. This server has taken the place of 10 Intel single-processor boxes, a ten-to-one consolidation ratio. GSS no longer needs additional space, and has consequently avoided additional costs of $25,000 per year. Air conditioning and power costs are lower, too, by $5,000 in the first year, with continuing savings of $2,000 per year in subsequent years. GSS is running at a much higher rate of server utilization, at 33 percent versus less than 5 percent previously.

But the biggest difference is enhanced productivity. Where it once took an average of three weeks to get a new QA environment up and running-ordering the server, setting it up, configuring and testing-now it takes a mere 15 minutes to designate a new virtual machine on the X4200 using VMware. Labor costs are down, too, from three hours to 15 minutes, a 92 percent decrease.

Once GSS gets a virtual server configured and working properly, it can store a "snapshot" of that environment. Should the virtual server become corrupted, the technician can simply restore the snapshot-essentially rolling back to a known good state-in under ten minutes, not the two days it used to take. GSS uses the Sun N1 Service Provisioning System to deploy new servers rapidly.

When all the cost savings are taken into account, GSS estimates that the X4200 paid for itself in less than three months. The combination of the Sun Fire X4200 server and VMware helps GSS remain competitive and continue to offer a high level of service to its customers.