“As a service provider, our most important reason for considering virtualization is fast recovery from system failure. Hyper-V and Live Migration help reduce recovery time to milliseconds.”

Sangok Park, Systems Engineer, Hostway Korea

Hostway Korea, a leading hosting provider, wanted to improve remote access to its network and increase server capacity without adding data center space. To meet those needs, Hostway is deploying Windows Server® 2008 R2 with DirectAccess and Hyper-V™. Remote users can now access corporate resources without a virtual private network, and server virtualization is projected to reduce server hardware by 83 percent and power costs by 75 percent.


Business Needs

Founded in 1998 in Chicago, Illinois, Hostway Corporation added branch offices in nine countries over the next decade. The Web hosting company opened its first branch, Hostway Korea, in Seoul in 2000. That office now has 100 employees, who serve 50,000 customers throughout Korea and in Japan, China, Australia, and the United States. In addition to Web hosting, Hostway Korea is a major provider of colocation services, IT outsourcing, and Microsoft® Exchange Server–based hosting services for businesses of all sizes.

Hostway salespeople and systems engineers needed an easier, more reliable way to connect remotely to the corporate network. “Our IT people needed to remotely access the network to provide 24-hour-a-day support,” says Dongho Lee, IT Consulting Team Manager for Hostway Korea. “Our salespeople also needed to access the network remotely to get answers for their customers.” Those users had been connecting through a virtual private network (VPN). But it was difficult to access and wasn’t reliable because the VPN protocol wasn’t supported by some Internet service providers, the network security policy of some companies, or by the router settings of the employees’ home computers.

The Hostway Korea data center housed 14,000 server computers, including 300 for the company’s internal IT infrastructure. As its business continued to grow, Hostway Korea wanted to add capacity without having to add data center space. It also wanted a more efficient way to test new applications such as the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration, which the company will use to offer revenue-generating services such as enterprise-class e-mail, calendaring, contacts, and real-time collaboration over the Internet through existing firewalls and routing infrastructure.

Solution

By early 2009, Hostway Korea was running its network infrastructure on the Windows Server® 2008 Enterprise operating system and taking advantage of Hyper-V™ virtualization technology. It also had migrated a majority of its workstations from the Windows®XP operating system to Windows 7 Enterprise. In addition, the company was planning to move all of its IT services to a Hyper-V environment by the end of 2009.

When Hostway Korea learned of Windows Server 2008 R2 with the new DirectAccess feature for improved remote connectivity and new Hyper-V capabilities such as Live Migration, it decided to put the solution to the test. In June 2009, the company started testing DirectAccess. With this feature, remote users who have client computers running Windows 7 can connect directly to network resources whenever they have Internet access. This feature would replace the VPN connection that is used by systems engineers and salespeople at Hostway Korea. Four IT staff members tested DirectAccess for two months in a Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V environment and then deployed the solution in production in August 2009.

In addition to testing its infrastructure components on Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V, Hostway Korea is testing the automated provisioning services of the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration in a Hyper-V environment. The company is also developing a pilot for private and public cloud hosting services that will run on Hyper-V and take advantage of the Live Migration feature. With Live Migration, Hostway Korea can move a virtual machine between two host servers without interrupting service, which will be critical for reliable cloud hosting services. The company expects to start offering private cloud services to customers by the end of 2009.

Benefits

Hostway Korea is using the new features in Windows Server 2008 R2 to enhance its customer service, reduce server hardware, cut power costs, and maximize network uptime.

n  Enhances customer service and reduces help-desk calls. The improved network access provided by DirectAccess makes it possible for Hostway Korea systems engineers and salespeople to connect to network resources from almost anywhere. “When I’m at a client site or at home, I can access network resources through DirectAccess as easily as I can from my office workstation, which expedites problem resolution,” says Jinhan Jung, Consultant for Hostway Korea. In addition to providing easier remote access, the deployment of DirectAccess has reduced help-desk calls related to VPN access by about 50 percent.

n  Reduces server hardware by 83 percent and power costs by 75 percent. When Hostway Korea completes the migration of its internal network to Hyper-V, it expects to consolidate 300 physical servers to 50 physical servers—an 83 percent reduction. “Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 will also reduce the labor for hardware setup and rack mounting by about 90 percent,” says Sangok Park, Systems Engineer for Hostway Korea. “It only takes about 3 minutes to set up a virtual server on Hyper-V compared to 30 minutes to set up a physical server. And if there’s a problem, we can use the Hyper-V snapshot to reinstall the machine very quickly.” Hostway Korea also expects that virtualizing its internal infrastructure will help reduce power costs by about 75 percent.

Although Hostway Korea hasn’t yet seen much demand for virtualization from its existing hosting customers, it does see virtualization as a way to add new customers without having to expand its data center.

n  Improves uptime. Because Hostway Korea can now move virtual machines from one physical host to another without interrupting service using Live Migration, the company will reduce downtime for tasks such as maintenance and be better able to maintain a high level of uptime. “As a service provider, our most important reason for considering virtualization is fast recovery from system failure,” says Park. “Hyper-V and Live Migration help reduce recovery time to milliseconds, which will be critical when we deploy our cloud hosting services.”

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2008 R2 is the latest version of the Windows Server operating system from Microsoft. With Windows Server 2008 R2, you can create solutions that are easier to plan, deploy, and manage than with previous versions of Windows Server. Building on the features, security, reliability, and performance provided by Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2 extends connectivity and control to local and remote resources. This means that your organization can benefit from reduced costs and increased efficiencies gained through enhanced management and control over resources across the enterprise.

For more information, go to:

www.microsoft.com/WindowsServer2008R2

Windows 7

Built on the Windows Vista® foundation, Windows 7 will help make users productive anywhere, enhance security and control, and streamline PC management. The investments in Windows 7 are shaped by the evolving needs of end users and IT professionals in the enterprise. Users are becoming more computer-savvy and expect more from the technology they use at work. They expect to be able to work from home, from branch offices, and on the road with the same level of productivity. As user needs have changed, the demands on IT professionals have increased. Today, IT professionals must provide more capability and greater flexibility for users while continuing to minimize cost and security risks.

For more information, go to:

www.microsoft.com/windows7