BT, an old-line telephone company formerly known as British Telecom, is trying to transform from a conventional telecom and networking company into an international IT services powerhouse. Virtualization technology is a key tactic in bringing about that change.
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Virtualization technology is key to helping BT become an international services powerhouse, says Martin Wickham, CIO of BT Ireland. |
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BT Ireland has created a 50-terabyte pool of shared storage resources using hardware from EMC Corp., and it has reduced the number of Windows and Unix servers from 40 to two using virtual-machine software from VMware Inc., an EMC unit. "I personally have been waiting a long time to get to the point where we have a smaller number of physical boxes running multiple applications," says Martin Wickham, CIO of BT Ireland. He envisions expanding this virtual infrastructure so BT can create a utility-style IT backbone from which it can sell both storage and server capacity, a concept it's testing with two customers.
Welch Foods Inc., known for its jams and juices, also has turned to VMware to improve data-center efficiency and reduce costs through virtual machines. The company's servers were running at only 25% of capacity. Using VMware software, Welch is now running between 10 and 14 virtual servers on each physical machine, letting the company reduce costs while getting more work out of each machine.
BT's and Welch Foods' virtualization projects are relatively small, but they're ahead of many companies; most still are using virtualization in test environments, or not at all. A Microsoft survey of customers found that only 16% use virtual servers.
But that's changing, and the growing interest among business-technology managers in virtual servers and PCs has technology vendors scrambling to stake out positions in a market expected to boom. Virtual-machine technology will become so pervasive in the next five years that it will be an integral part of every PC and server shipped, predicts Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds.
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