www.alliancetechnologies.net

Creating Virtual Solutions for Workplace Disaster

IA.biz Magazine, Volume 10, Best of Iowa Business Edition

By Jill Brimeyer

Des Moines, IA - The IT landscape is being rapidly and fundamentally transformed by the concept of virtualization, where a single server is installed with software that allows it to function as multiple virtual machines. Consolidating a roomful of servers onto just a few virtual machine-equipped pieces of hardware brings with it many advantages to business. But Alliance Technologies in Des Moines, the state’s largest full service IT service provider, is leading the charge to use this technology in some cutting edge ways.

“We started a couple of years ago using server virtualization to consolidate the footprint of our servers,” explains Sean Clark, solutions architect at Alliance Technologies. “Most everyone is familiar with the green aspect of server virtualization – it saves on energy cost, uses less power, less cooling, and when servers reach the end of their useful life, there’s less to throw away. But the next frontier is fully utilizing virtualization for disaster recovery.”

When massive flooding ravaged the Midwest in summer 2008, most of Alliance Technology’s customers had enough warning to be able to move their hardware to an alternate site. But what would have been the fate of these businesses if disaster had struck more suddenly?

“In the case of events such as the tornado in Parkersburg, you don’t see it coming, and you’re not going to move your system,” says Clark. “You have to have a duplicate system set up in advance.”

Under the old way of doing things, he says, servers couldn’t be replicated for a backup without a one-to-one mapping of hardware, operating systems, and complex manual procedures– an expensive, tedious, impractical proposition. But today Alliance Technologies is providing customers with this type of backup with just a few software files that emulate a whole system. The company is Iowa’s only authorized consultant for VMware, a leading virtual server product line, and was an early adopter of its VMware Site Recovery Manager.

“VMware Site Recovery Manager automates the entire process and gets it down to one-button disaster recovery,” says Clark. “With that one button you can test your disaster recovery plan, or, heaven forbid, if a tornado or fire takes everything down, we can use that one button at an alternate site to restore the entire network.”

Even when disaster doesn’t strike, Alliance Technology’s VMware-equipped customers have a distinct advantage.

Instead of having a tower of servers, they can have just a few, adding virtual servers down the road with a click of the mouse. Virtual servers save space, use about 60 to 80 percent less energy, and pay for themselves quickly through energy and labor savings.

“There’s a whole ecosystem of solutions surrounding virtualization, from shrinking your footprint to system recovery to using virtual desktops for ease of maintenance,” says Clark. “We’re just doing what we do best – providing holistic solutions to our companies’ IT needs.”

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IA.biz is published quarterly by Stonehand Publishing Group, an Iowa Corporation, in partnership with the Iowa Association of Business and Industry. This article was replicated with permission from the publisher.