Server Virtualization & Consolidation

As enterprises grow, IT organizations must rapidly add computing capacity - often in the form of new servers with disparate operating environments. The resulting server sprawl is costly in terms of capital and people needed to operate, manage, and upgrade new servers.
Server consolidation with VMware software provides a solution for these challenges. Virtual infrastructure enables unprecedented levels of workload isolation, granular resource control for all of the system's computing and I/O resources. Virtual Infrastructure integrates well with existing system management software and improves return on investment in shared storage (SAN). By consolidating physical systems in the data center onto servers with VMware virtual infrastructure, enterprises experience:

• Lower hardware acquisition and maintenance costs
• Consolidation of idle system resources
• Increased operational efficiency
• Cost-effective and consistent production environments

Software Development Optimization

CIOs are under constant pressure to shorten the cycle for enterprise application development and deployment. Migrating the development and testing environments to virtual infrastructure results in immediate improvement in time to market and lower defect levels.

VMware software encapsulates complete test platform applications and data into files. Furthermore, virtual infrastructure has many functions specifically designed for optimizing test and development environments - from system snapshot to support for system level debugging. With VMware software, enterprise development organizations can:

• Partition a single physical platform into dozens of isolated development environments
• Copy exact multi-module production environment into virtual machines for testing
• Share complete environments among different teams
• Eliminate repetitive configuration tasks from development and testing cycles
• Automate many testing sequences that previously required manual intervention
• Simulate complex networked applications on a single physical platform

Business Continuity

Each year hundreds of data centers worldwide will experience significant service interruptions. These businesses will be threatened by problems ranging from user errors to viruses, to hardware failures and natural disasters. Business Continuity is now at the forefront of corporate IT strategies and has gained visibility throughout all levels of management up to the CEO.
Using virtual infrastructure, IT managers can improve all aspects of business continuity, such as:

• Faster and less expensive disaster recovery due to hardware independence between primary and failover servers
• Elimination of scheduled hardware downtime and dramatic reduction in scheduled software downtime
• Single point of control for managing all the virtual machines and monitoring their host machines
• Encapsulation of complete machines into files for capture and recovery
• Simplified and repeatable automated processes

VMware P2V Assistant

VMware P2V Assistant is an enterprise-class migration tool that transforms an image of an existing physical system into a VMware virtual machine. This easy to use market proven tool enables fast and reliable physical to virtual machine migration for Microsoft Windows operating systems ranging from Windows NT 4 to Windows Server 2003.

The solutions that benefit from this best in class virtual machine creating tool include:

• Fast and Clean Migrations of Existing Applications to VMware Virtual Machines.  By eliminating the need to re-install software and configure complex application environments, VMware P2V Assistant cuts down on set-up time and delivers value on investments in VMware software in the shortest timeframe possible. Enterprises can quickly migrate legacy systems to a consolidated VMware virtual machine environment and, in doing so, upgrade these servers to new hardware.
• Efficient QA and Debugging. VMware P2V Assistant can capture images of production systems into VMware virtual machines and redeploy these images in a consolidated "sandbox" environment. Enterprises can minimize disruptions to production servers by troubleshooting problems and testing changes in this exact replica of the production environment.
• Disaster Recovery and Backup. With VMware P2V Assistant, users can periodically capture production systems into a library of "offline" virtual machines that can be activated in the event of a disaster to minimize service disruption.
• Standardizing on Virtual Infrastructure. VMware P2V Assistant simplifies migration to VMware virtual infrastructure, the foundation of the next generation computing in the enterprise. With minimal downtime IT administrators can migrate all their heterogeneous physical servers and existing virtual machines to the best in class VMware platforms to take advantage of flexibility, cost advantages, and streamlined management that virtual infrastructure brings.

Gibraltar Solutions Consulting Services

Packaged Solutions
Gibraltar Solutions consultants have developed standard solution packages that provide the highest value in a compressed timeframe. By leveraging the process, materials, and best practices developed across numerous customer engagements, we can provide you with a fast, efficient, and cost-effective solution. Our packaged solutions include:

• ESX Server Jumpstart: The objective of this packaged solution is to get you up and running on VMware ESX Server(tm), virtual machine software for consolidating and partitioning servers in high-performance environments, quickly and effectively. Gibraltar consultants will work with you to install and configure this highly scalable virtual machine platform so that you learn how to take full advantage of this product's advanced resource management capabilities to guarantee service levels.
• VirtualCenter Jumpstart: This packaged solution helps customers maximize their time and resources by helping them quickly understand and utilize the special capabilities of VirtualCenter.  An existing VMware ESX installation is assumed, or VirtualCenter Jumpstart can be combined with an ESX Jumpstart. Customers will obtain effective knowledge transfer by walking through an installation and getting VirtualCenter working in their own environment. By leveraging the experience of Gibraltar Professional Services, customers will be more expedient and successful in their VirtualCenter deployment.
• Physical to Virtual (P2V) Migrations: Using custom tools that we developed, Gibraltar consultants will assist you in importing the workloads of your physical servers into virtual machines. P2V Migrations are ideal for customers involved in server consolidation or legacy migration projects. They help reduce the complexity, risk, and downtime typically associated with these kinds of projects. By eliminating the need to re-install software and configure complex application environments, P2V Migrations cut down on set-up time and deliver value on your investment in VMware software in the shortest timeframe possible.
• Disaster Recovery and Backup (DRB): Disaster Recovery is critical in all environments where important corporate information is managed and stored. This packaged solution is designed to help customers implement a robust disaster recovery and backup solution using VMware's ESX Server. Included will be training, best practices, knowledge transfer and custom scripting.
• Server Consolidation Assessment: This packaged solution is designed to help customers understand the requirements and process involved in migrating and consolidating physical machines into a consolidated virtual machine environment. Gibraltar’s experienced consultants will work with the customer to analyze their existing environment and make recommendations as to what the target environment should looks like. Included will be an analysis of the TCO associated with the project and server sizing requirements.

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