News
University of Nottingham Chooses VKernel for VMware Environment Optimisation
January 2013 by Marc Jacob
Dell Software announced that the University of Nottingham, a leading UK research university, has deployed the vOPS Server Standard product from Dell acquisition, VKernel, a noted provider of enterprise-class capacity management and performance monitoring products for virtualised data centres and cloud environments, for VMware capacity management. Nottingham joins a number of other colleges and universities from around the world using VKernel as their VMware management software solution.
The University of Nottingham is ranked within the top one percent of all universities worldwide with its placement at 73RD in the QS World University Rankings. Nottingham has campuses in the UK, Malaysia and China, with a staff of nearly 8,000 and over 40,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students. To save money and reduce the university’s carbon footprint, Nottingham decided to consolidate and virtualise all servers into the data centres on its UK campus. Determined to find the product that could best support VM performance monitoring while servers were virtualised and also identify environment optimisation opportunities, The University of Nottingham selected VKernel to provide virtualisation management support. As system developer Craig Place affirmed, “After attending a conference on virtualisation, I learned that VKernel was way ahead of all others offering management software. So, it became the obvious choice for our needs.”
Implementing VKernel has helped Nottingham meet the business goals of its virtualisation initiative. Specifically, the University of Nottingham has been able to correctly size VMs, freeing up resources to increase virtual server density. According to Place, “Rightsizing VMs using the VKernel software has given us a considerable amount of manoeuvring room, and that has spared the university from facing some very expensive alternatives for growing our total capacity.” Additionally, VKernel identifies wasted data files that can be removed. The reclaimed capacity can then be redeployed to other virtual machines and can lead to significant savings and further server consolidation goals. As Place mentions, “I don’t think we would have been able to find as many files left on the environment to reclaim. In the last month alone, I’ve cleared off nearly 200 GB of storage. If we’re looking at roughly 20 GB per VM, that equates to several additional VMs that we can add. This helps us squeeze that last VM on to an ESX host without impacting performance.”
“We’re pleased to be able to support The University of Nottingham in achieving the goals that were set for their virtualisation initiative,” said Eric Jackson, senior director of product management, Dell. “One of the main drivers for virtualisation projects, such as the one Nottingham engaged in, is to reduce the overhead from maintaining multiple physical servers through consolidation. VKernel’s software has been designed to enable easy implementable recommendations on VM sizing, waste removal and optimal VM placement based on advanced analytics. Incorporating these capabilities into a virtualised environment allows VM administrators to more efficiently use existing hardware, increasing investment return from the virtualisation project.”
