Ian Grayson | June 17, 2008
KEEPING the technology systems humming in a large organisation is always a challenge, but when you add the need to make them environmentally sustainable it gets even tougher.
Peter Bennington says the council rationalised its servers
"We wanted to improve our flexibility and responsiveness to the business," chief technology officer Peter Bennington says. "The other driver was sustainability. We wanted to reduce our environmental footprint."
As WA's largest local authority, the city provides services for more than 180,000 people spread over some 100sqkm on the outskirts of Perth. It is responsible for everything from sanitation and roads to recreation facilities and libraries.
About two years ago, the council realised its ageing data centre needed to be upgraded.
As well as struggling to meet the growing needs of the organisation, it was felt there had to be a more environmentally friendly way to provide the IT support it needed.
According to Bennington, the council relied on 45 physical servers to run its core applications.
As well as resources needed to keep them running, the fact that they were refreshed every three years meant a lot of equipment ended up as landfill.
"We had the situation where, for every software application we were running we had to have multiple physical servers on which to run it," he says. "The council has been very focused on sustainability in the broadest sense and is trying to make the whole city socially, economically and environmentally sustainable in the long term. In IT, we knew we had to do our part."
After various options were assessed, a decision was taken to consolidate the servers.
Equipment from a number of vendors was examined before a decision was made to install new IBM BladeCenter HS21 blade servers.
Bennington says IBM was chosen because of demonstrated performance and reliability as well as factors such as low power and cooling requirements. By the time the consolidation program had been completed, the council had moved all its core applications from 45 servers to just seven blades.
This change has reduced power consumption, contributing to the goal of reducing the organisation's carbon footprint. A core element of the new infrastructure is server virtualisation technology.
Rather than needing separate boxes for each application, resources can be allocated from the blades as they are needed.
"Virtualisation has offered a lot of benefits to the business," Bennington says. "Previously, if we needed to install a new application it involved buying equipment and allowing time for delivery and deployment. Now we have the capacity to dynamically create servers when needed."
As part of the consolidation project, the council also established a disaster recovery facility at an off-site location. Using virtualisation tools, the organisation's entire IT infrastructure has been replicated, allowing the back-up system to be brought into use within hours, should it be required.
"When we first looked at disaster recovery, it was a different paradigm with physical servers and it became problematic as to how you would set it up and activate it. The virtualised environment has streamlined the whole process for us."
As well as performance and environmental pluses, the council's success with consolidation and virtualisation has had another spin-off. The IT department is now in a position to offer outsourced technology services to other organisations.
After initially dealing with one private client, Bennington says he has plans to extend the concept to other firms in the area.
The council hosts virtualised blade servers in its data centre on behalf of its customer, removing the need for a dedicated technology department.
In the longer term, Bennington sees this becoming a revenue stream for the council, eventually reaching the point where the IT department becomes not only cost-neutral but actually profitable.
"We might also look at doing the same thing for some of the smaller councils that don't have the finances or resources to have proper IT infrastructure and disaster recovery facilities," he says.
The experience and knowledge that now exists in the council's IT team means they are well placed to offer advice and service to external organisations, he says.
THE PROBLEM
To streamline an existing IT infrastructure, improve performance, reduce costs and shrink the council's carbon footprint.
THE PROCESS
Replacing 45 physical servers with seven blade servers in a virtualised environment.
THE RESULT
A scalable, flexible IT infrastructure that draws less power while supporting all core applications.