news Microsoft has revealed that a virtualisation solution built on Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise with Hyper-V technology has been implemented by retail giant Coles, at each of its 741 supermarkets, to tackle an aging, in-store fleet of server hardware.

Additionally, the company utilized Microsoft System Center solutions to centrally manage and orchestrate the geographically-dispersed infrastructure. The information was revealed in an extensive case study which Microsoft published on the rollout yesterday.

Almost a century since it was founded in 1914, Coles has more than 110,000 employees on its payroll, working in the entity’s numerous retail stores, grocery supermarkets, fuel and convenience stores, liquor stores, and several distribution centers. The IT department at Coles manages operations from a central location handling both back-office administrative operations, and more than 12 million customer transactions every week. Field support is provided by technology partners to keep in-store servers and other endpoint devices running efficiently.

In 2000, according to Microsoft, Coles adopted server virtualisation, choosing VMware, the only viable solution available then. However since VMware was still in its infancy, the company used it in its corporate offices, and implemented the Windows Server 2003 operating system at its supermarket locations with one application server and one point-of-sale server at each store, for a total of 1,500 physical servers.

The arrangement took its toll on productivity and revenue, and by 2009, it became increasingly difficult for the IT department to ensure seamless running of store operations, in the face of critical server outages because of hardware failure. It thus became imperative for Coles to locate a server virtualisation solution for its stores, especially since it had a successful virtualised server environment in their corporate headquarters.

Ken Harmsworth, GM Infrastructure Services and Operations at Coles, said in Microsoft’s case study that the critical requirement was to offer ‘quick disaster recovery,’ so that in the event of a failure, stores would be ‘back up and running in a matter of minutes.’ Under these circumstances, Coles decided to deploy Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise with Hyper-V technology after evaluating the competition.

The IT team at Coles can now quickly respond to changing business needs, recover data from servers in seconds, and control costs, without interrupting service to store personnel and customers. Coles worked with Australia–based Dilignet, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, to design the solution architecture for each Coles’ store.

Features that have come in handy are Cluster Shared Volumes in the Windows Server 2008 R2 which Coles uses in its failover clusters, and which enables virtual machines to access the same virtual hard disk files; and Dynamic Memory, an enhancement to Hyper-V by which the company can pool memory on a host machine and dynamically distribute it to other virtual machines in the cluster in order to make efficient use of all available physical memory.

In April 2011, after a successful pilot phase, Coles began rolling out the solution with Hyper-V to individual supermarket locations. By October 2011, the company had implemented the virtualisation solution in 300 stores. Deployment efforts at the remaining supermarket locations are expected to continue throughout 2012. By using Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V technology, whenever faced with hardware failure, the IT team is able to fix servers without store personnel even noticing (according to Microsoft’s case study), thus using their time to respond to changing business needs.

Ken Harmsworth, General Manager, Infrastructure Services and Operations at Coles says “By using Hyper-V and System Center solutions, we can easily spin up a new virtual machine on existing hardware from a central location without worrying about devoting costly resources to deploying a physical server.”

opinion/analysis
Wow. The virtualisation market has been completely dominated by VMWare for a number of years now, and while the company’s solution is technically excellent — causing a virtual overnight revolution in the way we think about enterprise IT — that dominance has also led to some unfavourable conditions being imposed on VMWare customers from time to time. You know, the sort of terms which monopolists are usually fond of. Compulsorily bundling a web browser with an operating system is a good example ;)

But now, for Microsoft, the shoe is on the other foot, and the company is now a strong challenger in the virtualisation space. It’s great to see some strong competition in this area and a challenger holding the industry giant to account. As Hyper-V and Microsoft’s complementary server offerings develop further, it will be fascinating to see how the virtualisation market changes. VMWare definitely now has something to worry about — and that can only mean good news for customers :)

Image credit: Microsoft. Opinion/analysis by Renai LeMay

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1. Pete
   Posted 15/03/2012 at 11:03 am | Permalink | Reply

   The email wars are now the virtualisation wars. The number of Microsoft sellers (many) vs. VMware will make things interesting.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 15/03/2012 at 11:17 am | Permalink | Reply

     +1

     You are precisely right about this.

2. Clinton
   Posted 15/03/2012 at 12:09 pm | Permalink | Reply

   By using Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V technology, whenever faced with hardware failure, the IT team is able to fix servers without store personnel even noticing

   Down Down! Hyper-V’s down!!

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 15/03/2012 at 1:44 pm | Permalink | Reply

     lol

     It took me a while to get this one, but it was worth it when I did :)

3. Zwan
   Posted 15/03/2012 at 2:32 pm | Permalink | Reply

   *hipster voice*

   IBM was virtualising before it was cool.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 15/03/2012 at 4:17 pm | Permalink | Reply

     lol

     Technically true :) but the definition of virtualization these days might include a bit more than the old platforms were capable of ;)

4. Chris Brown
   Posted 15/03/2012 at 5:02 pm | Permalink | Reply

   To me, it seems like this may have had something to do with licensing costs…. Just maybe.

   • Adam Fowler
     Posted 15/03/2012 at 5:14 pm | Permalink | Reply

     When I reviewed the choice between Hyper-V and ESX, Hyper-V was about 1/5th of the cost. ESX was a bit ahead feature/technology wise, but not enough to justify that cost difference. The decision was easy, and Hyper-V has been doing a decent job of things since.

   • Renai LeMay
     Posted 15/03/2012 at 5:17 pm | Permalink | Reply

     I’m sure that came into it :)

     However I also think it could e about levels of complexity. Do you really need the full functionality of VMWare for this business case? Or could this jut be done quicker and easier with something that is already baked in to the underlying platform?

     The NSW Dept of Education deployed a similar ‘branch office server’ rollout of Hyper-V a while back. At the time I got the impression that it wasn’t just about cost etc. It seems kind of like VMWare has its place in the datacentre core, Hyper-V maybe more in the edge server network.

     Requires further investigation.

     • Chris Brown
       Posted 15/03/2012 at 5:19 pm | Permalink | Reply

       With all due respect, Renai, I don’t think complexity is an issue here. Having administered both in production environments, it’s potatoes and potatoes. If you know one, you prefer it. I don’t think complexity is enough to knock one system over in favour of another.

5. Shannon Pace
   Posted 16/03/2012 at 10:06 am | Permalink | Reply

   i have to agree with renai, in regards to his comment about complexity. in my experience, having the hyper-v capability ‘baked-in’ to the underlying operating system infrastructure, along with microsoft’s system centre software, makes the business case for hyper-v very compelling.

   whilst everyone would agree that vmware is an outstanding product, with many functions, it still is an ‘extra’ product for a lot of businesses with windows server as their base. if hyper-v can do that job, and in a lot of cases it can (and will only get better), why would you spend more money on a product with functionality that you will never need, and could use a product that integrates seamlessly (now) with your underlying operating system environment.

   i, for one, am glad that hyper-v is kicking some serious business goals in the enterprise space as it will only enhance the rate of adoption for hyper-v, thereby increasing the need for vmware to become more competitive, particularly with price (as previously commented on).

6. Mark M
   Posted 16/03/2012 at 2:57 pm | Permalink | Reply

   Will get even more interesting when “Server 8″ comes online. Most of the reviews I have seen of it say that has taken Hyper V to the next level. Will be very interesting next few years.

   http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/14/windows_8_server/

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