TPS360° VMWARE Virtualization Solutions Overview

 TPS360° Virtualization Experts Team

Our Team is industry leading.  They are very highly regarded in the field of virtualization and work closely with industry leaders and product vendors from VMware, Microsoft, Dell, IBM, HP, EMC, Hitachi, Brocade, and many, many others.

Our primary product for virtualizing is VMware ESX because of its wide area of support for operating systems both x86 and x64 versions and total adoption by the systems manufacturing industry.  But we will also work with you on any virtualization product you may be using or want to use.

We are proud to say “Yes, you can virtualize that!”

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

Servers running IT infrastructure applications represent the majority of Intel Architecture server sprawl.

The applications in this category are represented by file and print server, directory infrastructure, web servers, firewalls, NAT/ DHCP servers and so on.

Although most of these servers are only utilized by 10-15%, architectural, security, and compatibility issues lead to recommendation to dedicate a separate physical platform to each of these applications.

Managing, patching, and securing these servers takes valuable IT time. In addition, proliferation of physical servers drives operational costs for facilities, power, and cooling.

Because of the low server utilization and the combination of low CPU and medium I/O requirements, IT Infrastructure servers are prime candidates for virtualization and associated consolidation.

Virtualization allows enterprises to realize:

• Consolidation ratio of 4 workloads per CPU or higher
• Lower capital and operational costs
• Dramatic improvements in server management, including add, moves, and changes, provisioning, and re-purposing
• Infrastructure which is more robust and disaster resistant

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.

Elements of a successful business continuity strategy include:

• Application availability planning
• Preventive measures including monitoring and platform redundancy
• Data Protection
• Disaster recovery strategy
• Effective personnel plans

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

TPS360° - VMware Converter Enterprise

TPS360° - VMware Converter can be run on a wide variety of hardware and supports most commonly used versions of the Microsoft Windows operating systems. With this robust, enterprise class migration tool you can:

• Setup multiple conversion jobs to convert critical physical systems to virtual machines; this can be setup and ran as often as need for BCP and DR events
• Quickly and reliably convert local and remote physical machines into virtual machines without any disruption or downtime.
• Complete multiple conversions simultaneously with a centralized management console and an intuitive conversion wizard.
• Convert other virtual machine formats such as Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual Server or backup images of physical machines such as Symantec Backup Exec LiveState Recovery or Ghost 9 to VMware virtual machines.
• Restore VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) images of virtual machines to running virtual machines.
• Clone and backup physical machines to virtual machines as part of your disaster recovery plan.

TPS360° - VMware Converter lets users quickly, easily and affordably convert Microsoft Windows based physical machines and third party image formats to VMware virtual machines. It also converts virtual machines between VMware platforms. VMware Converter provides for the following benefits compared to other solutions:

Performance and Scalability

• Multiple simultaneous conversions enable large-scale virtualization implementations
• Quiescing and snapshotting of the guest OS on the source machine before migrating the data ensures conversion reliability
• Hot cloning makes conversions non-disruptive—with no source server downtime or reboot
• Sector-based copying enhances cloning and conversion speed
• Support for cold cloning¹ (conversion that requires server downtime and reboot) in addition to hot cloning
• Management
• Centralized management console allows users to queue up and monitor multiple simultaneous remote as well as local conversions
• Easy to use wizards to minimize the number of steps to conversion
• Support for both local and remote cloning enables conversions in remote locations such as branch offices
• Interoperability: Broad support for source physical machines and image formats
• Source physical machines running 64-bit Windows XP/2003, WinNT SP4+, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003
• Source third party images: Microsoft Virtual Server, Microsoft Virtual PC, Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery (formerly called Live State Recovery), Norton Ghost 10, Norton Save & Restore
• Source/Destination virtual machines: VMware Workstation, VMware GSX Server, VMware Player, VMware Server, VMware ESX Server (Managed by VMware VirtualCenter 2.x)

TPS360° Professional Services VMware Consulting

As a VMware Premier Enterprise and Consulting Partner, TPS360° VMware consultants have both the expertise to identify the best solution for your environment and the experience needed to develop and implement it right the first time. We provide extensive knowledge transfer to your team throughout each project with the goal of making your team fully self-sufficient in using and managing VMware virtual machine software products and services.

Our consulting solutions are designed to help you at any stage of your process - from gathering business and technical requirements, to custom development, and through integration with your existing business systems and processes. Our consulting services include:

Packaged Solutions
By working closely with our customer base, TPS360° VMware 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 Jump Start: 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. TPS360° VMware 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.
• Virtual Center Jump Start: 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 TPS360° VMware Professional Services, customers will be more expedient and successful in their VirtualCenter deployment.
• VMWare Converter Migratons: Using custom tools that we developed, TPS360° VMware consultants will assist you in importing the workloads of your physical servers into virtual machines. Converter 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, Converter 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. TPS360° VMware experienced consultants will work with the customer to analyze their existing environment and make recommendations as to what the target environment should look like. Included will be an analysis of the TCO associated with the project and server sizing requirements.
• Besides the packaged solutions we will work with you to come up with custom solutions to answer today and tomorrow’s technology woes.

TPS360° Methodology & Delivery
Today’s IT environment demands agility in responding to the latest business requirements and changes in the technology landscape. Many enterprises have chosen VMware software to gain efficiency and operational flexibility. To benefit from the capabilities that virtual infrastructure offers, enterprises need clear guidance to assess their existing systems and applications, and then use that knowledge to plan, build and manage their virtual infrastructure. The TPS360° award-winning methodology is a four-phased approach designed by TPS360° Professional Services Team so your virtualization project will be a success. We can provide you with a custom solution architecture based on road-tested methodologies and best practices.

Custom Solution Architecture and Implementation
TPS360° VMware consultants design and deploy custom solutions for VMware Workstation, VMware GSX Server, VMware ESX Server and/or VMware VirtualCenter to meet your particular requirements.

Sample custom solutions include:

    * High availability and clustering
    * Performance measurement and tuning
    * Application and data management
    * Security Architecture
    * Provisioning management
    * Integration with existing systems management
    * Custom scripting

When we design a custom solution, TPS360° VMware consultants first work alongside your technical staff to assess your current environment and needs. We then develop a statement of work that outlines your project scope, deliverables, schedule, and pricing. After implementing your custom solution, TPS360° VMware consultants deliver thorough documentation and follow up with you to ensure that your expectations have been met.