A secure, reliable infrastructure capable of responding nimbly to business demands.
Done.
P&O Ferrymasters simplified operations, improved manageability and control, and enhanced service delivery by further consolidating and virtualising its commodity server infrastructure onto Unisys ES7000/one Enterprise Servers.
Evolution through Virtualisation
P&O Ferrymasters has evolved its servers and software toward a Real-Time Infrastructure through further consolidation and virtualisation. Two virtualised ES7000/one Enterprise Servers with Real-Time Capacity (RTC) offer flexibility and cost-controlled availability whilst enabling improved service delivery.
Metrics
- Agility: Newfound ability to provide cost-controlled, on-demand IT resource provisioning.
- Service delivery: Continual improvements in service excellence whilst keeping infrastructure lean and efficient.
- Reduced costs: Eliminate 30 commodity servers using virtualisation – and simplify operations, ease management and maintain a small IT footprint for ongoing savings.
Business Challenge: Enable IT to Deliver More Value to the Business
Steve Walters is a careful guy. Currently the IT director at P&O Ferrymasters, Walters was raised in a mainframe environment and holds his Microsoft Windows & Linux based infrastructure to the same high standards of performance and availability.
“I insist on consistency and control,” says Walters. “In 2006, P&O Ferrymasters and its partner network managed 575,000 loads for our customers. When you consider that nearly 800 users rely on my IT system daily for logistics, you can understand why my standards are so rigorous.”
Last year, € 525 million worth of business flowed through this highly reputable multimodal freight management company. P&O Ferrymasters rail, road and ferry routes radiate from strategic hubs along the English Channel and northern Europe to destinations as far flung as Moscow, Istanbul and Valencia. With strategic warehousing and the global cargo capability of its parent company Dubai World, P&O Ferrymasters serves as a critical node in complex supply chain operations for leading European companies.
Starting from IT complexity and sprawl born of company mergers, Walters has been tackling the challenges of centralisation and consolidation since 1999 and relying on Unisys support for more than 10 years. Most recently, Unisys helped P&O Ferrymasters consolidate 45 servers with mixed operating systems onto one ES7000 Enterprise Server running Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server.
Whilst it reduced maintenance costs – £35,000 annually – the first round did not consolidate all existing applications, ensure the quick provisioning and performance boost needed by current installations of Microsoft SQL Server or entirely eliminate server sprawl.
“My goal is to achieve standardisation, control and high performance on as small a footprint as possible,” Walters says. “Think thousands and thousands of truckloads and shipping containers needing to hit their destinations on time – I’ve got to keep improving the IT core that delivers the information for that to happen.”
Solution: Virtualisation Leveraging ES7000 Servers with Real-Time Capacity
Under Walters’ direction, P&O Ferrymasters IT already had an excellent system availability record – one he intended to maintain. He also needed to gain even better control of the company’s server infrastructure, which spans 47 locations and is supported by 37 IT staff members.
“Like everyone else, I’m pressed to deliver at the same high levels with less,” notes Walters. “And so I have to choose my IT investments carefully. They have to save money, be innovative without being risky and deliver value back to the business over the short- and the long-term.”
Bringing in Unisys once again, this time for consolidation and migration services using virtualisation technology, Walters decided to add two ES7000/one Enterprise Servers with Real-Time Capacity and virtualise via VMware® ESX Server™. He chose the Unisys Real-Time Consolidation Accelerator solution to automate and accelerate the consolidation process and attendant data centre migration.
“The two new ES7000s and VMware ESX Server allow us to do a number of things at once,” says Walters. “For starters, they’ve brought applications that are not supported by a co-hosted deployment into the consolidation fold.
“Furthermore, they support our drive toward a single Microsoft Windows & Linux platform in the data centre. With the Real-Time Capacity, the ES7000s also have ready-reserve processing power that we can activate and pay for only when we need it. That helps us control costs whilst ensuring the availability and performance boost for our database environments.
“Finally, we now have virtualised test and development, which further reduces costs and speeds deployment of our internal software projects. Going forward, I expect that our virtualised environment will be able to accommodate any additional servers, whether for applications or to assist with centralisation of remote infrastructure.”
Results: A Real-Time Infrastructure Built for On-Time Performance
With ongoing support from Unisys, Walters is well along the path to delivering an infrastructure that consumes fewer resources and delivers greater value to the business. Through further consolidation and virtualisation of its infrastructure, P&O Ferrymasters benefits from:
- Increased agility: 30 virtual servers on two ES7000/one servers with Real-Time Capacity provide cost-controlled, on-demand provisioning.
- Improved service delivery: Maintaining leanness and efficiency of the infrastructure despite growth, IT has improved its already excellent record of service delivery, including on-demand capacity for improved SQL Server performance.
- Reduced costs: By keeping its infrastructure footprint small through consolidation, and minimising or eliminating local and remote commodity server sprawl through virtualisation, IT has simplified management, reduced power costs and licensing fees, and established a framework for ongoing cost savings and efficiencies.
“What we’ve created with the ES7000s delivers uptime and availability that’s comparable to a mainframe environment,” says Walters. “It gives me the control I need to deliver a high level of service to the business.”
Unisys has been essential in enabling me to execute on my master plan for infrastructure development. ...Unisys continues to help me create a more efficient, responsive, and cost-effective infrastructure that, in turn, enables P&O Ferrymasters to deliver more.
Steve Walters
IT Director
P&O Ferrymasters
The Relationship: Enabling IT to Deliver ROI
“Unisys has been essential in enabling me to execute on my master plan for infrastructure development,” says Walters. “Through hardware, software, and consolidation and migration services, Unisys continues to help me create a more efficient, responsive and cost-effective infrastructure that, in turn, enables P&O Ferrymasters to deliver more.”
Profile: P&O Ferrymasters
- Headquartered in Ipswich, United Kingdom
- Employs 900 people at 47 locations across Europe
- Operates a fleet of 4,580 multipurpose road trailers and intermodal shipping containers
- Multimodal freight management company that helps Europe’s leading corporations reduce costs and simplify logistics in complex supply chains
- Wholly owned by Dubai World
- www.poferrymasters.com
Solution at a Glance
- Unisys consolidation and migration services
- Unisys ES7000/one Enterprise Servers with Real-Time Capacity
- Unisys Real-Time Consolidation Accelerator
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition
- VMware ESX Server software
