From Storage to Desktop — by Way of Network and Server

Agilysys presents a full-spectrum view of virtualization

January 20, 2009 — Sun Executive Level Partner Agilysys, Inc. unveiled its "Virtualization Hub demonstration center at its Edison, N.J. location January 13 to a crowd of over 100 customers and partners. Consisting of layered desktop, server, network, and storage virtualization products from Sun and other leading vendors, the Virtualization Hub is designed to provide a "holistic view" of available virtualization capabilities. The unique demonstration center provides IT customers with the practical insight they need to make fully informed virtualization investment decisions — "whether the plan is to rightsize, refresh, or repurpose equipment," says Anita O'Malley, senior marketing manager for Sun Technology Solutions at Agilysys.

Hands-on holistic demonstration

The Virtualization Hub enables customers and partners to examine, hands on, the workings of individual and layered technologies and products — and how they interact to deliver business value — in a full-fledged virtual environment, according to Gerard McGowan, director of Marketing, Sun Technology Solutions, at Agilysys. "Scripted demos can be run independently or they can be modified by customers and partners to suit their requirements."

"What is most valuable about our Virtualization Hub," says O'Malley, "is its cross-platform and cross-product view that enables customers and partners to see side-by-side comparisons or, in some cases, the only functionality available in the mainstream market. It specifically looks at virtualization as a four-layer model and shows a reference architecture with products for each virtualization layer, including desktop, server, network and storage."

Some of the vendor solutions represented in these virtualization layers include:

• Desktop virtualization: Sun xVM VDI Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Software, Sun xVM VirtualBox, and Sun Secure Global Desktop Software.


• Server virtualization: Sun xVM Server and VMware running multiple virtual machines on Sun Blade servers.


• Network virtualization: Switches, network adapters, and software from Brocade, Force10 Networks, Qlogic, and Cisco Systems.


• Storage virtualization: A virtual tape library and a Hitachi storage virtualization management software solution.

Visitors to the Agilysys Virtualization Hub can see how Sun xVM Ops Center ties it all together, monitoring and managing physical machines and operating systems on both virtual and physical nodes. They can also experiment with management software from Symantec.

Extending the value of virtualization

Segments of the IT community today have already discovered the benefits of server virtualization: consolidating legacy Windows and other servers to slash power and cooling costs and boost performance — even as they conserve precious datacenter real estate. Similar savings have accrued to those IT shops that have reduced the size of their switching infrastructures to acquire the "simplicity, transparency, and green efficiencies" that network virtualization brings, says McGowan. "But many customers are not aware of the proven solutions that are out there today that can extend the benefits of virtualization beyond the network and server layers."

"I believe storage is the next hot focus area in virtualization," says McGowan, who sees the "tremendous business value" organizations can achieve by being able to assimilate all of their heterogeneous storage into a unified pool — consolidating formerly disparate islands of storage. "The Virtualization Hub," he says, "demonstrates how you can virtualize and migrate data from EMC, HP, and IBM storage to a unified Sun environment. Building a level of transparency by taking an umbrella approach to virtualized storage management and enabling you to control storage from multiple vendors from a single console."

Visitors to the Virtualization Hub can also witness the value of desktop virtualization in action. In this scenario, desktop applications and data are hosted in the datacenter, where they can be more effectively secured. The Virtualization Hub shows how IT shops can "provision and manage desktop updates centrally, in a way that was never available before," says McGowan, enabling them to dramatically reduce the costs and time associated with administering distributed desktop software. What's more, customers and partners who visit the Virtualization Hub can see how Sun Ray thin clients, Macs, and PCs employ desktop virtualization to access applications running on multiple server and OS platforms from a single device.

What sparked the idea for the Virtualization Hub?

Last year, McGowan explains, "we were approached by Sun Storage executives to talk to us about building a storage demo environment, looking at things like migration off of EMC or the ability to use storage management tools to manage cross-storage platforms — to make them more efficient, more effective, assuming the world is heterogeneous."

McGowan sensed, however, that in order to offer more value to customers, a broader solution theme would be necessary. To that end, he decided that "one of the most active technologies being explored these days is in the area of virtualization... So that, in order to do the best job, we actually had to show the whole picture" — including not just storage, but virtualized network, server, and desktop technologies working together as a whole. McGowan's experience, backed by his research, told him that while "vendors tend to look at products, customers tend to focus on business problems — problems that require a solution. And a solution generally takes the form of multiple product pieces, wrapped in a layer of services, and perhaps even financial packages. So we decided to take a holistic view of virtual technologies and to build our center based on that."

Sun partnership advantage

McGowan sees mutual benefit in the partnership between Agilysys and Sun. "Sun has a long history of innovation," he says. "I worked for Sun for 16 years and the solutions suite is better now than ever before. As one of Sun's largest commercial resellers, doing between $250 and $300 million in Sun-related revenue annually, we have the flexibility to do things others can't." For example, the Executive Partner was recently able to provide Sun loaner equipment worth $1 million to a large financial services company to help close a deal.

Based in Cleveland, and with locations throughout North America and in the U.K. and China, Agilysys, McGowan says, "functions as the last mile to the customer. Sometimes vendors don't always have all the necessary resources. We can fill the cracks. When customers have an unusual request, as they sometimes do, we like to be the glue."

See it for Yourself

To see the Virtualization Hub in person, contact your local Agilysys representative, visit the Agilysys Virtualization Hub, or call +1 732-692-1919.

To view a complete portfolio of Sun's virtualization products and services, visit the Sun Virtualization Solutions area.