Trinity transfers the Kay Computer Center to virtualization

Tasks

The main objective for IT division in the company is functioning of shops which perform sale of the computer equipment and other goods. It should be noted that directly in trading floors the KEY Computer Center is absent the selected technicians which are directly engaged in maintenance own IT of infrastructure. Just as keeping of competent personnel considerably increases the total ownership cost of IT infrastructure. As a result, all personnel of IT division are concentrated at the central office located in St. Petersburg. Enters tasks of department both IT support of office, and support of the shops which are in St. Petersburg and remote regions. Thus, the question of flexible remote control comes for the company to one of the defining positions. Also there was topical issue of the organization of sending the customized systems to remote shops for their subsequent deployment.

The project on updating of a fundamentals of IT of infrastructure had one more factor: transition from platforms of Microsoft on free program extended according to the licenses GNU GPL. As a result, from infrastructure support of Windows OS, and with Linux OS was required.

As basic unit the separate shop was selected. On the one hand, it is rather autonomous unit in IT to infrastructure of the enterprise - each shop has the servers and the autonomous resources for work. On the other hand, all shops are very similar on the structure and differ only in the number of users and their jobs. From a function point of sight shops are completely repeated each other. Thus, the solution designed for one shop can be postponed with ease for all others. Also simplification of service of shops is one of the main methods to unload the IT service of the company located at the central office.

As a result, it was necessary to develop the solution allowing to simplify service of remote infrastructures and to provide flexibility of transfer of configurations. At the same time the solution servicing infrastructure had to be based on the minimum quantity of the equipment and support work with Windows and Linux.

Solution

In a type of long and effective cooperation the KEY Computer Center and Trinity companies concerning server platforms, the issue of the choice of the partner in this project was resolved quickly enough.

As a basic technology for infrastructure the solution using virtualization was selected. A choice from products of virtualization of servers was made for benefit of VMware vSphere as the most progressive and functionally promoted product in the market. VMware vSphere is almost not limited in terms of the operating systems supported by it and equally successfully works, as with Windows and with Linux.

Main advantages of a product were:

• the most effective resource allocation;
• economical use of RAM and disk resources;
• existence of a monitoring system of a condition of equipment and all system in general;
• existence of instruments of collection of information about performance;

Setup of infrastructure for a pilot project was performed by specialists of Trinity company then for shops specialists the KEY Computer Center continue to perform tuning of platforms. Works on establishing pilot start of the virtualization platform were continued within two weeks.

Result

The implemented system solves several problems. On the server of IBM the virtualization platform of VMware of ESX on which virtual servers based on Linux or Microsoft OS are located is installed. Thus, two standard procurements turn out. They service system operation of accounting of 1C, the system of authorization of users and file archives. The software of VMware provides start of these operating systems on some physical resources, flexibly distributing them, and allowing to save on the equipment. A system allows administrators to select standard procurement and to quickly develop it in shops with considerably smaller costs on time. Also considerably process of remote control became simpler: now administrators can solve problems with the operating system up to complete recovery after failure of OS at the lowest level. There was an opportunity to create instant pictures of all systems for a possibility of operational recovery in case of failure and also backup procedure due to lack of bindings of OS to the equipment became simpler. Together with all this the versatile tool of performance of all systems and operation of the equipment appeared.

It should be noted that the implemented system completely meets expectations of the customer and the largest shop of the computer equipment got the mass of advantages from the point of view of the organization of business processes:

• the efficiency of use of the physical equipment increased,
• the controllability all systems improved,
• there was a simple backup system,
• there was an opportunity to start if necessary on one physical server both Linux, and Windows of the machine,
• there was a versatile tool of monitoring of the equipment.

Now a system is used in four shops, in each of which about 40 users. Further on the same platform it is going to start all again opened shops.