Member Article

Phil Cambers, commercial director of SITS Group, shares his expert knowledge in virtualisation and cloud computing.

Phil Cambers is an expert in providing virtualisation solutions, tailored to companies’ individual IT needs. As commercial director of SITS Group (Specialist IT Services); the region’s first virtualisation specialist company, Phil has helped hundreds of businesses improve the security and backup of their IT infrastructure. Set up three years ago SITS Group is now winning new contracts outside of the region due to the high demand for virtualisation solutions.

What is virtualisation?

Virtualisation is the concept of running multiple instances of servers on a single host server. Different workloads can be moved from one host server to another, maximising resources and prioritising business needs at the same time. For example if a company that operates in a seasonal industry temporarily needs a bigger server for a week or month they can slim back the other servers on that host and accommodate the capacity as required.

How can virtualisation benefit me?

Virtualisation has many business benefits including reduced running costs, easier management, improved scaleability, and it enables business continuity. This is why virtualisation is the fastest growth area in IT.

Is the solution scalable?

Adding a new virtual machine takes minutes unlike buying a new server which takes weeks and has a huge cost associated with it.

Once you have a virtual environment you can create a new server by simply clicking a button to deploy the server. The previous alternative to this was procuring a physical server, racking it in a cabinet and spending hours configuring it. Also it may be that a server is only needed for a short space of time for a specific project. In this case buying a server for a short term project was always a pain. Now with a virtual environment you can create the virtual server, do what you need to do then get rid of it when you’ve finished and give back the resource you took back to the cloud.

How much money will we save by virtualising?

We have seen some organisations save up to 60% over a traditional physical server environment over three years - this is made up with both opex (operating expenditure) and capex (capital expenditure) savings.

Where does virtualisation fit in with cloud?

Virtualisation is cloud computing. By virtualising your servers and implementing VMware (virtualisation software) in your own server room you are effectively building your own private cloud. When a public cloud gains credibility you are able to move non critical virtual machines from your own on-premise cloud to a public cloud as frequently or infrequently as you like.

Will my applications run at the same performance in a virtualised environment?

In 99% of cases applications will actually run better on a VMware environment.

Are we too small an organisation to virtualise?

We have virtualised organisations with as few as 50 staff and a handful of servers - no one is too small to consider the benefits of virtualisation.

What are the costs involved and can we lease a solution?

The costs can range from hundreds to thousands of pounds however SITS Group provides a tailored offering from specialist technicians; we listen to your company’s individual requirements and design a solution that meets your business, technical as well as budgetary needs.

How can virtualisation aid my business continuity ambitions?

By virtualising your IT infrastructure, your core servers can be replicated to another server very easily. The replication server could be in another part of your building, another office you have a comms link to, or a datacentre that SITS Group partner with.

What types of companies currently use virtualised infrastructure?

Virtualisation can benefit any sector, we have virtualised many of the leading organisations in the North East including Sintons LLP, Muckle LLP, Port of Tyne Authority and Northumberland National Park Authority to name but a few.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Phil Cambers .