Carmarthenshire County Council has increased operating efficiency, reduced infrastructure costs, and boosted its ability to provide cloud services across the Authority by deploying Xsigo virtual I/O as part of a server consolidation initiative.

The Council has selected Xsigo virtual I/O for their cloud deployment, and was able to gain immediate benefit from the simplicity and performance of virtual I/O compared with legacy Cisco (News - Alert) Ethernet and Fiber Channel solutions, said Mark Hardy, director of EMEA at Xsigo.

To provide services to approximately 180,500 people, Carmarthenshire County Council employs over 9,000 staff. The staff handles management, support and delivery of the IT infrastructure behind the services provided by the Authority.

This organization sees IT as a business enabler, which is why it has developed a reputation as a technology early adopter. In 2010, the Council embarked on a server consolidation project and a potential expansion of the storage environment. And, at that time, the existing Cisco Fiber Channel switches had just over a year left before they had to be replaced.

Nial Grimes, IT consultant at the Authority, and his team considered an expansion of their Cisco 10GbE infrastructure and a Fiber Channel switch update. They, however, concluded after a comprehensive analysis that it would be cost effective to deploy Xsigo virtual I/O.

Hardy said that for organizations providing cloud services from their data center, it is of paramount importance to be able to meet service levels while securely separating resources, another reason why Xsigo was an easy choice for the Authority.

With Xsigo I/O Director, users can easily connect any server to any network and storage device through a consolidated infrastructure. Company officials said that this allows organizations to save up to 50 percent on capital costs while gaining a 100X increase in data centre agility.

Moreover, the I/O Director delivers up to 40Gb bandwidth per server connection, which allows IT administrators to increase server consolidation ratios and accelerate management tasks such as vMotion and data backup, said company officials.

To schools and other partner organizations across the Authority, the Council has been delivering cloud services for some time. Company officials said that the Xsigo technology fits perfectly into this set-up as it allows the IT staff to segregate services where necessary and to collaborate wherever possible.

“With Xsigo virtual I/O we can segregate resources to ensure isolation while encouraging collaboration with schools and partners,” said Grimes.

Virtual I/O has also substantially increased their server consolidation ratio, Grimes said, adding that best of all, “our cost savings on the Cisco 10Gb Ethernet and Fiber Channel infrastructure more than paid for the Xsigo solution.”

Earlier in April, Bluelock deployed Xsigo virtual I/O in their VMware vCloud services data center.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.