AAPT to shrink servers from 300 to 13 with VMware

Stuart Corner
Friday, 11 July 2008 11:03

Business IT - Technology

AAPT plans to deploy VMware's data centre virtualisation technology running on Sun servers to reduce server numbers in its data centre from 300 to 13.

The VMware Infrastructure 3 will run on Sun Fire X4600 M2 servers, each with 8X CPUs and Sun Fire X4200 servers each with 2XCPUs. According to VMware, "this is the first major agreement signed in the Australia-Pacific region following VMware's OEM deal with Sun Microsystems, member of EDS Agility Alliance." AAPT's virtualisation system will be installed, maintained and supported by EDS Australia and New Zealand.

David Yuile, AAPT general manager networks and technology, said: "We chose VMware and Sun because of their experience with virtualisation, where no other vendors could match our needs."

Under the OEM deal between Sun and VMware, announced in February, Sun offers the VMware Infrastructure product suite on Sun hardware with full support from Sun. The two companies said they would also collaborate on system management configuration, deployment and monitoring for each other's products.

Sun and VMware have had a relationship since 2005 when they formed an alliance to deliver VMware server virtualisation capabilities on Sun Fire x64 servers and the Sun StorEdge 6920 system. The two also signed a technology agreement to provide support for the Solaris 10 as a guest OS on future VMware server and desktop products.