Microsoft Virtualization: Data Center to DesktopCustomer Solution Case Study

Appliance Manufacturer Saves €1.5 Million with Global Virtualization Solution

OverviewCountry or Region: GermanyIndustry: Manufacturing

Customer ProfileHeadquartered in Gütersloh, Germany, Miele & Cie has manufactured household appliances to a high standard since 1899. It employs more than 16,000 people worldwide.

Business SituationWith more than 800 physical servers in its two data centers and global subsidiaries, Miele turned to virtualization to help reduce costs and power consumption.

SolutionWhen Microsoft released Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V virtualization technology and Live Migration, Miele decided to migrate its entire virtualized environment from VMware to the Microsoft solution.

Benefits Saved 30 percent on licensing costs Reduced hardware costs by 50 percent Improved data center management

“Even after five years of building up our VMware environment, the cost savings and integrated management tools inherent in a Microsoft solution justified a total migration to Hyper-V.”

Egbert Fichtler, Head of IT Infrastructure, Miele

Miele & Cie is a manufacturer of premium household appliances that are distributed worldwide. To reduce server sprawl and data center costs, Miele had deployed a large virtualization solution based on VMware. However, to expand its virtualized environment, the company evaluated and then deployed a Microsoft solution based on Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter with Hyper-V technology and managed with Microsoft System Center products. So far, Miele has migrated 200 virtual machines from VMware to Hyper-V, and plans to migrate 350 more by mid 2011. To date, Miele estimates saving €1.5 million (approximately U.S.$1.8 million) with global virtualization on hardware by decreasing physical server needs by more than 50 percent and by improving administrators’ productivity and reducing licensing costs.

SituationSince Carl Miele and Reinhard Zinkann founded Miele & Cie in 1899, the company has focused on quality and innovation as key differentiators for its premium brand of domestic appliances that are made to a high standard of energy and water efficiency. The company also designs and manufactures fitted kitchens and commercial machines. Today, the Miele and Zinkann families still run the business, which has grown to global proportions with its own wholly-owned sales subsidiaries. The company operates through distributors in 100 countries and had a turnover of approximately €2.77 billion in the 2008/2009 fiscal year. The company manufactures its products in eight plants in Germany and one plant each in Austria, the Czech Republic, China, and Romania.

Worldwide, Miele employs more than 16,000 people, approximately 11,000 of whom work in Germany. Since the company’s inception, Miele employees have strived to adhere to the company motto, “Forever Better,” ensuring that the company maintains its history of innovation to stay ahead of the competition.

For IT staff, upholding this goal requires maintaining a cost-efficient, highly reliable IT infrastructure to support business and manufacturing operations 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That’s one reason why, in 2005, Egbert Fichtler, Head of the IT Infrastructure at Miele, and his colleagues decided to deploy a virtualization solution from VMware.

“We had a rapidly growing data center with 800 physical servers running at low capacity and we wanted to consolidate hardware

and save space,” Fichtler recalls. “When we opened our second, energy-efficient data center in Gütersloh to build redundancy into our infrastructure, we continued with our virtualization initiative to create highly available clusters. Even so, today, we still have 450 physical machines in our data centers.”

Five years ago, Miele chose VMware because it needed the VMotion functionality, which enables administrators to move virtual machines between two virtualization host servers without any interruption of service. The company concurrently deployed a small number of virtual machines using Microsoft Virtual Server 2005—the Microsoft virtualization technology offered at that time—in a small test and development environment at headquarters.

The VMware solution at Miele was considered a success for the first few years. “However, when we migrated specialized servers to our virtualized environment, we began getting compatibility problems and we had to revert back to physical servers,” says Fichtler. “Some applications, such as our communication middleware components that forward email messages to mobile devices, and some components on our phone system, did not interoperate well with our Hewlett-Packard servers and our virtualization technology. Email and telecommunications are critical functions for our employees, and we couldn’t afford to compromise these services.”

By 2008, Miele had built up a large virtualized environment on VMware ESX 3.5—more than 22 physical hosts with 64 central processing units among them,

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“Even though VMware had been in the market a long time, and has a lot of features, we were not entirely happy with the value for the money.”

Egbert Fichtler, Head of IT Infrastructure, Miele

supporting 350 virtual machines distributed among the data centers and two plants in Germany. “Even though VMware had been in the market a long time, and has a lot of features, we were not entirely happy with the value for the money,” says Fichtler.

So, when Microsoft introduced its Hyper-V virtualization technology, a feature of the Windows Server 2008 operating system, Miele IT staff was immediately interested. “With the introduction of Hyper-V, which includes Live Migration, the main differentiator for Miele between the Microsoft and the VMware products had disappeared,” says Bernhard Westerwalbesloh, Project Manager and Hyper-V Administrator. “At Miele, this was enough for us to pause and reevaluate our virtualization solution strategies going forward. With 450 physical servers in our data centers, there was still a lot of opportunity to extrapolate the benefits of virtualization and server consolidation. However, there was no option of mixing the two solutions; so, in the end the decision became: do we commit to VMware or do we commit to Microsoft?”

SolutionMiele decided to align its virtualization strategies with Microsoft and deployed the Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter operating system with Hyper-V in December 2009. Because this was an important strategic decision for Miele, IT staff considered more than the licensing cost savings it would get with a Microsoft solution. They wanted a virtualization solution that would meet enduring IT goals, including compatibility with the existing infrastructure and user-friendly, interoperable management tools—such as

those in the Microsoft System Center data center products.

“This decision had long-term ramifications for the company as a whole, so we needed to get it right,” says Fichtler. “Even after five years of building up our VMware environment, the cost savings and integrated management tools inherent in a Microsoft solution justified a total migration to Hyper-V.” Establishing Business Value In assessing the long-term business value of the migration, Miele IT staff sought to build a cost-effective data center for the future using the technology that the company already owns, such as its many Windows-based servers and an Active Directory Domain Services solution. And, through Hyper-V Live Migration, the Microsoft virtualization solution also delivers Cluster Shared Volumes. This feature provides a single, consistent storage space that allows hosts in a cluster to concurrently access virtual machine files on a single, shared logical unit number on the company’s NetApp Local Area Network (LAN) storage solution. Cluster Shared Volumes solves the single virtual machine per logical unit number restriction, driving efficiency and performance within a LAN storage solution.

“Miele is very much interested in consolidating vendors and simplifying its operations to control costs, both on the IT and the business levels,” says Michael Hüttenhölscher, Team Manager, Windows Technology Team at Miele. “So we were motivated by the benefits of an integrated hypervisor that’s built directly into the operating system. Also, with the Microsoft System Center data center products, we get

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one suite of server management tools that gives us visibility into the physical server, the operating system, the hypervisor, and the applications layers.”

Deploying to Data CentersIn December 2009, Miele started migrating VMware virtual machines to Hyper-V at its two data centers. IT staff began by building a six-node, high-availability cluster for infrastructure services such as Active Directory Domain Services controllers. Then, the team built another four-node cluster for applications such as those serving the production lines and corporate functions. IT staff are using Live Migration and Cluster Shared Volumes to maintain these highly available environments and to extend the company’s NetApp shared storage solution.

For the application migrations, Miele began by moving many of its web servers and small front-end servers for the SAP system, and many line-of-business applications for the plants. “These are mission-critical applications for the infrastructure in each subsidiary,” explains Westerwalbesloh. “We are also virtualizing the Client-Access Server role for our Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 solution.”

Also in December 2009, Miele IT staff deployed Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 to provide centralized management, monitoring, and self-serve provisioning for virtual machines. IT staff used the wizard-based interface to perform physical-to-virtual (P2V) migrations from the VMware environment, in VHD format, to convert existing physical servers, and to create new virtual machines in the Hyper-V environment.

Miele upgraded Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 to System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 and gained the ability to monitor the health and performance of both physical and virtual workloads. Miele also acquired Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007 R2. “We are using System Center Data Protection Manager to provide backup for our Active Directory controllers and our test environment for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010,” says Westerwalbesloh. “I am also running a beta version of System Center Data Protection Manager 2010 to test back up of our Microsoft SQL Server databases.”

Virtualizing at the SubsidiariesWith the migration initiative well under way at the data centers, Miele IT staff turned their attention to building a virtualization solution at each subsidiary. So far, the team has deployed a Hyper-V virtual infrastructure for 20 of the 47 subsidiaries and plans to roll out the virtualization solution to the rest of the subsidiaries over the next year.

“Our experience working with Hyper-V in the data center has been excellent, so now we can recommend that our colleagues in the subsidiaries choose Hyper-V as well,” says Hüttenhölscher. “We are recommending a single host and four virtual machines at each subsidiary to host their entire mission-critical environment. So far, we have a total of 20 hosts and 80 virtual machines running in our subsidiaries.”

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“Miele is very much interested in consolidating vendors and simplifying its operations to control costs, both on the IT and the business levels.”

Michael Hüttenhölscher, Team Manager, Windows Technology Team, Miele

To date, Miele has a total of 200 Hyper-V-based virtual machines in the data centers and subsidiaries. Miele expects to migrate the remaining 350 VMware virtual machines to the Microsoft virtualization solution by the middle of 2011, bringing the total to 550 virtual machines. Any new applications that are acquired during this time will go directly to the virtual environment. Overall, the company plans to virtualize 80 percent of its infrastructure, migrating completely away from VMware in two years.

BenefitsBy choosing a Microsoft virtualization environment instead of upgrading VMware, Miele is saving money and gaining an enterprise-ready solution for comprehensive server virtualization, monitoring, and management to maximize data center efficiency. The whole solution dovetails perfectly with the company’s goal to consolidate on a single vendor that can provide the most value for the dollar.

“The more we can consolidate our operating systems, our physical and virtual environments, and our server management tools, the more cost-effectively we can run our data center,” says Fichtler. “A Microsoft virtualization solution provides the best platform to do that.”

Reduced CostsSince beginning its virtualization efforts, Miele has saved €1.5 million (approximately U.S.$1.8 million) in hardware costs by halving its physical server needs, reducing licensing costs, and by improving administrator productivity. It has also significantly reduced energy costs. This aggressive virtualization strategy,

combined with a new, energy-efficient data center, underscores the company’s vested interest in protecting the environment—just as it strives to do with the “green” household appliances it makes.

Miele took advantage of the more cost-effective and flexible virtualization rights that come with a Microsoft virtualization solution. Microsoft sees virtualization as an IT commodity service integrated into the IT infrastructure, so it offers Hyper-V virtualization technology as a free* component of the Windows operating system. VMware charges customers for its hypervisor, which is offered as an additional layer to complicate the IT infrastructure.

“We saved an estimated 35 percent in licensing costs by going with a Microsoft virtualization solution instead of VMware,” says Fichtler. “The Microsoft option covered most of our requirements, so we didn’t have to spend much time building a business case for senior management. The savings were obvious.”

Improved Data Center ManagementMiele is already experiencing improved productivity among its server administration staff, thanks to the integrated capabilities of the System Center data center products and Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. Miele can use these products together to gain both host and in-guest management of its virtual machines. Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 provides insight into

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“Our experience working with Hyper-V in the data center has been excellent, so now we can recommend that our colleagues in the subsidiaries choose Hyper-V as well.”

Michael Hüttenhölscher, Team Manager, Windows Technology Team, Miele“The more we can

consolidate our operating systems, our physical and virtual environments, and our server management tools, the more cost-effectively we can run our data center. A Microsoft virtualization solution provides the best platform to do that.”

Egbert Fichtler, Head of IT Infrastructure, Miele

application health as well as hypervisor and operating system health.

“Adding a virtualized layer to your environment can be seen as adding complexity, but, if you use the same underlying technology for the servers and the management tools, then it is not such a problem,” says Hüttenhölscher. “Our system administrators are reporting that it’s easier to use a single set of tools to manage the infrastructure, and they are spending less time on everyday tasks and have more time to work on important topics.”

System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 includes a product connector for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 that adds virtualization-specific information to its monitoring database. This gives Miele administrators visibility into all levels of their IT infrastructure: the Windows operating system instance, the physical Hyper-V host, the virtual machines, and the applications running in each virtual machine.

“In our IT environment, a lot of our server monitoring was reactionary,” says Fichtler. “But with Operations Manager, all the events and solutions are included. As there is no difference in monitoring between

virtual and physical severs, that makes the life of our administrators easier.

“Our business is growing year over year, with more IT and more applications required,” Fichtler concludes. “Moving to a single, integrated, virtualization and management solution is the right strategy for Miele, and we picked the right vendor in Microsoft.”

Microsoft Virtualization

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Miele products and services, call (49) 05241 89-0 or visit the website at: www.miele.com

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

Document published August 2010

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter− Microsoft System Center Data

Protection Manager 2007 R2− Microsoft System Center Operations

Manager 2007 R2− Microsoft System Center Virtual

Machine Manager 2008

Technologies− Active Directory Domain Services− Hyper-V

Hardware HP ProLiant DL585 DX C6 Series servers NetApp storage area network

Microsoft virtualization is an end-to-end strategy that can profoundly affect nearly every aspect of the IT infrastructure management lifecycle. It can drive greater efficiencies, flexibility, and cost effectiveness throughout your organization. From accelerating application deployments; to ensuring systems, applications, and data are always available; to taking the hassle out of rebuilding and shutting down servers and desktops for testing and development; to reducing risk, slashing costs, and improving the agility of your entire environment—virtualization has the power to transform your infrastructure, from the data center to the desktop.

For more information about Microsoft virtualization solutions, go to: www.microsoft.com/virtualization

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