IT Consultancy Helps Customers Virtualize Big Workloads and Save Money with Upgrade

OverviewCountry or Region: United KingdomIndustry: Professional services—IT services

Partner ProfileChorus IT provides IT services, consulting, and other services to small and midsize businesses across the United Kingdom. Chorus is based in Portishead, England, and employs 35 people.

Business SituationChorus wanted to virtualize its customers’ demanding applications, perform maintenance tasks more efficiently, and give customers a great experience using any computing device.

SolutionChorus is encouraging customers to upgrade to the Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system to take advantage of numerous enhancements to virtualization, virtual machine maintenance, and remote access.

Benefits Save money for customers by

virtualizing large workloads Improve application availability Give customers a better remote

computing experience Move IT assets to the cloud

“By using Windows Server 2012 R2, our customers no longer have to buy as many standalone servers to run high-end databases, a savings of $15,000 to $40,000.”

Mark Taylor, Managing Director, Chorus IT

Chorus IT helps small and midsize businesses use technology to be more successful. The UK IT services provider is upgrading customers’ servers to the Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system to take advantage of enhancements in virtualization, server maintenance, and remote-desktop usability. Chorus customers can now virtualize databases and other large workloads and eliminate costly physical servers. Customers can also reduce downtime by having Chorus perform maintenance tasks more flexibly. Additionally, Chorus can deliver a better remote-desktop user experience for customers that lets employees use personal devices while enforcing centralized desktop control. As customers become more comfortable with cloud computing, Chorus plans to move customer servers to Windows Azure, which will further reduce server-related chores and free Chorus to focus on consulting.

SituationChorus IT provides consulting services, graphic design, and creative services to small and midsize businesses across the UK. Based in Portishead, England, near Bristol, Chorus has 35 employees and is a member of the Microsoft Partner Network with Gold competencies in Midmarket Solution Provider, Customer Relationship Management, and Management and Virtualization.

As a longtime Microsoft partner, Chorus is always looking for ways in which it can leverage the latest Microsoft offerings to help its customers operate their technology more efficiently and cost-effectively. “We are the outsourced IT provider for most of our customers, and they depend on us to scout out technologies that can save them money and help them be more successful,” says Mark Taylor, Managing Director at Chorus IT.

The Windows Server 2012 operating system was one such technology, which Chorus deployed broadly on customer servers to virtualize and thus economize server holdings, improve server availability, and simplify IT management. For example, by using the Hyper-V technology in Windows Server 2012, Chorus was able to gain greater virtual machine density on customer servers, thus saving customers money. However, there were still limitations in which workloads customers could virtualize and how much flexibility Chorus had in managing them.

“What was missing was adequate storage I/O control to ensure that virtual machines running the heaviest workloads received the disk throughput they needed to deliver adequate performance,” Taylor says. “We weren’t able to specify or control the rate of storage to and from the storage area network, so customers had to keep these demanding applications on expensive standalone servers—an expense of up to [US]$20,000.”

Further, although Chorus could use Windows Server 2012 to move virtual machines between host servers to perform maintenance tasks, if a virtual machine was online or a virtual hard disk was in use, it was not possible to perform maintenance on that virtual machine’s virtual hard disk without temporarily shutting down the virtual machine. Chorus had to do this work over a weekend when the downtime would least affect the customer’s business.

Many Chorus customers were also grappling with the “bring your own device” (BYOD) phenomenon: employees using personal devices for work. Chorus wanted to help customers accommodate this desire while ensuring that company data was safe and the remote access experience a productive one.

Finally, while virtualization represented a great leap forward in reducing technology costs, Chorus dreamed of getting out of the server business altogether. “We don’t have a huge number of servers onsite since we don’t provide hosting services for customers, but we still have three racks of servers that we use to run our own business,” Taylor says. “Same for our customers: they don’t have a lot of servers, especially with virtualization, but there is still a great deal of time and money involved in purchasing, configuring, racking, and maintaining physical hardware. What we sell is our expertise; we don’t make any money selling hardware.” Chorus had the idea to shrink its customers’ and its own server footprints by migrating servers into third-party public cloud services.

SolutionWhen the Windows Server 2012 R2 operating system became available, Chorus deployed Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter as a Hyper-V cluster (using HP ProLiant DL360 Gen8 servers and an HP p4000 storage area network) to evaluate enhancements to Hyper-V and other areas.

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“We are the outsourced IT provider for most of our customers, and they depend on us to scout out technologies that can save them money and help them be more successful.”

Mark Taylor, Managing Director, Chorus IT

Support for Large Virtualized Workloads, Easier MaintenanceOne enhancement that solved problems for Chorus and its customers was Storage Quality of Service (QoS), which Chorus uses to guarantee that key server workloads get the disk throughput that they need. Storage QoS lets organizations throttle I/O to a given virtual machine to a maximum I/O threshold.

Another Windows Server 2012 R2 enhancement, online virtual hard disk resizing, solves the problem of making changes to running virtual machines. In Windows Server 2012 R2, Hyper-V supports a 64-terabyte virtual disk format with the ability to expand or shrink the size of a virtual hard disk while the virtual machine is still running. Chorus uses this feature to perform maintenance tasks without powering down servers. Chorus also gains new flexibility from using Hyper-V Live Migration to move virtual machines around from one Hyper-V host to another to perform maintenance on the host server without affecting workloads running in the virtual machines.

Improve User ExperienceChorus is using other Windows Server 2012 R2 features to improve the customer end-user experience. “We have an increasing number of customers whose key applications are web-based,” Taylor says. “The new Workplace Join and Web Application Proxy capabilities allow us to publish internal web apps securely to customers’ personal devices, such as Apple iPads, and let them use single sign on to access those applications.”

Workplace Join lets users register their personal devices for single sign on and access to corporate data. Web Application Proxy is a new remote access service in Windows Server 2012 R2 that provides reverse proxy functionality for web applications inside a corporate network, allowing users to access files from outside the corporate network using any device.

Chorus is also taking advantage of several enhancements to Remote Desktop Services (RDS), the workload in Windows Server that enables users to connect to virtual desktops, session-based desktops, and RemoteApp programs. RemoteApp enables the design of programs that are accessed remotely through RDS to appear as if they are running on the user’s local computer.

Chorus was also pleased to find that Microsoft improved the remote user experience in Windows Server 2012 R2 by eliminating some of the usability gaps between a RemoteApp program and a local app. There is now full support for transparent windows (application windows that appear translucent on-screen) in RemoteApp programs, ClickOnce setup technology, and quick reconnect capability. “In the past, when a network drop caused the client device to attempt to reconnect to the remote session, it could take up to 70 seconds,” Taylor says. “Windows Server 2012 R2 increases the speed of detecting such a loss and now reconnects in less than 10 seconds.”

Chorus will deploy Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials for some customers who are currently running older versions of Windows Small Business Server. Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials is an edition of Windows Server specifically targeted at small and midsize customers; it provides data protection, remote access, cloud services integration, health monitoring, and other capabilities together with a simplified management experience. Chorus plans to sell Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials as a complement to Microsoft Office 365, which provides cloud-based Microsoft Office tools. “Windows Server 2012 R2 provides great local shared file storage that interoperates well with Office 365,” Taylor says.

Cloud-Based FutureDown the road, Chorus is interested in moving customer workloads and its own internal business applications into Windows

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“Windows Server 2012 R2 provides great local shared file storage that interoperates well with Office 365.”

Mark Taylor, Managing Director, Chorus IT

Azure, the cloud-based operating system that provides compute, storage, hosting, and management services from Microsoft datacenters. Chorus and its customers would access these applications—most of which are line-of-business applications not yet available as cloud offerings—using RemoteApp.

“With the enhancements made to RemoteApp in Windows Server 2012 R2, we and our customers can access all our applications, even the most compute-intensive, as web-based applications and enjoy a smooth, local-desktop-like experience,” Taylor says. “And we no longer will have to house and manage servers.”

BenefitsBy deploying Windows Server 2012 R2 at customer sites, Chorus IT can help customers save money by virtualizing their most demanding workloads, which heretofore required dedicated physical servers. It can improve application availability and reduce downtime by performing maintenance tasks on running virtual machines during normal business hours. It can also deliver better remote-desktop experiences for customers. Ultimately, when Chorus begins replacing its own and customers’ servers with Windows Azure services, it will be relieved of server management chores and can focus on what it does best: provide world-class IT guidance.

Save Money for Customers by Virtualizing Demanding WorkloadsWhen Chorus customers upgrade to Windows Server 2012 R2, they can take advantage of Storage Quality of Service to guarantee performance levels for the biggest virtualized applications. “With Storage QoS, we can virtualize demanding workloads that customers were previously nervous about virtualizing because we have a way of guaranteeing performance levels,” Taylor says. “We can create policies to govern bandwidth usage by all virtual machines and monitor their performance to

stay ahead of problems. By using Windows Server 2012 R2, our customers no longer have to buy as many standalone servers to run high-end databases, a savings of $15,000 to $40,000,” Taylor says.

Improve Application Availability by Minimizing DowntimeWith Windows Server 2012 R2, Chorus can perform routine maintenance activities, such as changing virtual hard disk sizes, during the workday, on the fly, without powering down customer servers and inflicting downtime. “Plus, we don’t have to charge the customer as much for this work because the work doesn’t take as long and doesn’t need to be performed at night,” Taylor says. “For some customers, this could result in a time saving of as much as 30 hours over six to nine months and a cost avoidance of $3,000 in Chorus fees.”

Give Customers Better Computing ExperienceChorus customers are able to use Windows Server 2012 R2 to enable the BYOD model—letting employees use personal smartphones, tablets, and laptops for work. “We can help our customers empower their employees to use whatever devices they want, which makes employees happier and more productive,” Taylor says. “End users have the best experience ever using Windows Server 2012 R2 to connect remotely to server-based applications, and we as the IT staff have complete control over these devices, which keeps company data safer.”

Move IT Assets to Cloud to Increase Service Focus and Give Customers More Flexible IT When Chorus begins moving applications into Windows Azure, it can get out of the server business. “Our customers can pay Microsoft directly for server and storage resources, and won’t have to be bothered with them,” Taylor says. “Our value and revenue come from supporting, managing, and helping our customers take maximum advantage of technology; but with

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“Our value and revenue come from supporting, managing, and helping our customers take maximum advantage of technology; but with Microsoft taking care of provisioning and maintaining servers, we can better focus on what we do best.”

Mark Taylor, Managing Director, Chorus IT

Microsoft taking care of provisioning and maintaining servers, we can better focus on what we do best.”

Customers, too, realize many benefits by using Windows Azure. They or Chorus can deploy new servers in minutes without having to worry about physical resources. They can add memory, storage, and CPUs to Windows Azure virtual machines, also in minutes, to accommodate demand spikes. Servers are always running the latest version of Windows Server. Microsoft datacenters meet much tighter data-security standards and provide higher levels of availability than most small and midsize businesses could ever create in their server rooms. And there’s no need to worry about server or software warranties expiring.

“As our customers become more comfortable with cloud computing, we see Windows Azure being a great resource for them,” Taylor says. “We will still manage those resources for customers, but having the servers living in Microsoft datacenters will give us more time to focus on our expertise, which is helping small and midsize customers use technology to achieve business success.”

Transform the datacenterThe hybrid cloud from Microsoft transforms the datacenter by extending existing investments in skills and technology with public cloud services and a common set of management tools. With an on-premises infrastructure connected to the Windows Azure platform, you can deliver services faster and scale up or down quickly to meet changing needs.

For more information about transforming the datacenter, go to:www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/cloud-os/modern-data-center.aspx

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This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published February 2014

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter

Technologies− Hyper-V

Hardware HP ProLiant DL360 Gen8 servers HP p4000 storage area network

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For more information about Chorus IT products and services, visit the website at:www.chorus.co