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Microsoft cloud Q&A: Pella, 6/22/12, for customer review R240640011684000 Lindsay Berg, Senior Product Marketing Manager in Microsoft’s Windows Server & Management Marketing organization, recently chatted with Jim Thomas and John McConeghey of Pella Corporation about the company’s switch from VMware to Hyper-V and its use of Microsoft System Center 2012—and, soon, Windows Server 2012—to conquer business challenges with private cloud computing. Thomas is Director of IT Operations, and McConeghey is IT Manager.Berg: So, begin by telling us why you decided to switch from VMware to Microsoft private cloud software.Thomas: We did some good things with VMware—virtualized 85 percent of our 600 servers. Virtualization really helped us reduce hardware costs during the housing downturn that started in 2005. We were able to retire hardware and not replace it. However, as the recession dragged on, we needed to drive for even greater efficiencies. VMware licensing changes caused us some concern. Making a switch to Microsoft System Center and Hyper-V was going to save us money today and tomorrow, as our business grows, because we wouldn’t take on additional licensing costs. We also felt that the larger Microsoft cloud vision and ecosystem were superior to what VMware had to offer, and we were excited about where it could take us as our business started recovering. Berg: How did your staff take the news?McConeghey: Some were worried. Hyper-V was an unknown, and our staff was not convinced that Hyper-V could replace VMware ESXi. VMware has been very good at nitpicking at the flaws of Hyper-V. But when we took a hard look at whether those things mattered, we realized that they didn’t. When we looked at Hyper-V and System Center from top to bottom, we saw that they better aligned with the skill set of our staff, the applications we were using, and the platforms we were running. Berg: How did you proceed?McConeghey: Well, we were also concerned about the migration effort, but Microsoft introduced us to FyrSoft, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, which helped us determine whether the migration was feasible and devise a migration plan. FyrSoft created a proof of concept, which went a long way toward proving that our environment would run and run well on Hyper-V and helping our staff become comfortable with the System Center tool set. FyrSoft brought in the Microsoft Virtual Machine Migration Toolkit, which automated the whole VMware-to-Hyper-V migration process. We were dealing with applications that run our business, so to be able to do this migration quickly was very important to us. The toolkit relieved us of a lot of heavy lifting to get from VMware to Hyper-V. The whole thing went incredibly well, and we were the ones originally poking holes in it.Berg: How long did the migration take?Thomas: It took just two months to migrate our main data center to Hyper-V. We’ve also migrated 10 manufacturing sites and numerous sales offices to Hyper-V.Berg: What does your private cloud infrastructure look like today?McConeghey: We have 50 host servers that contain approximately 600 virtual machines. I think I have 12 months of growing room in this environment. With our Microsoft private cloud, we want to take all of the distributed systems scattered around the country, bring them back to our corporate data centers, and serve up those solutions to our organization so they can stay focused on selling and servicing windows and doors—and not be in the business of IT.Berg: What do you think of System Center 2012, and what role does it play in your private cloud?McConeghey: We’re in the process of upgrading to System Center 2012 and understanding how to use it to monitor and manage our infrastructure more efficiently. We plan to do lots of automation with the Orchestrator component, and we’re looking forward to monitoring our environment much more closely with the Operations Manager component. There are synergies across the whole System Center suite, such as triggering an Orchestrator event and having Operations Manager respond automatically. It will make our team much more efficient. Berg: Tell us about your early look at Windows Server 2012; which features are important to Pella?McConeghey: Data bloat is a key concern for every company, and we’re dealing with that here. One of the key features of Windows Server 2012 that we’re very intrigued with is the data duplication feature. We’re very excited about it. Berg: What are the big benefits of cloud computing to Pella?Thomas: Previously, we didn’t have insight into how our various services were performing, but with System Center 2012, we have much more granular insight into and control over the services we’re delivering to the business. This is critical in helping us make great windows and doors. With our private cloud infrastructure, we’re able to deliver IT services seamlessly and with an attractive cost model. We feel that it’s really an enabler for us to continue to be a continuous improvement organization.My team can also work more productively. With cloud computing, I can provide elasticity to the business without devoting so many resources to watching the environment. My teams deliver the most value when they’re supporting new business initiatives, not managing servers. We’ve obviously been fighting through a very tough economy, and as our business continues to grow, we need to support what the business wants us to do without constantly growing our headcount. System Center will be a big help in that respect. We only have 10 people supporting 4,000 desktop computers and 600 servers. We expect to grow our services by as much as 25 percent over the next couple years, and we won’t have to add headcount to do it.Berg: What about licensing savings from getting off VMware?Thomas: They will be significant. Hyper-V and System Center licensing is included in our Microsoft Enterprise Agreement. We achieved six-figure savings on licensing costs and will continue to see even more significant savings as we avoid purchasing new licenses going forward. Also, we’ll be able to eliminate some third-party products, such as server security update software, that are included in System Center. Berg: How does your staff feel about Hyper-V and System Center now that they’ve settled in with them?Thomas: Our team is growing professionally using these products, which is part of the reason they work at Pella. Pella is a continuous improvement organization; we’re always striving to do things with fewer steps, using fewer people, making fewer mistakes. That’s exactly what we’re doing in IT. It’s a huge point of pride to our staff and a key point in recruiting people. ................
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