On the plus side, virtualisation had enabled UNSW to get its per server unit cost and deployment time down from about $12,000 per physical server with three month end-to-end deployment to $1,000 per virtual machine with a two day end-to-end deployment, Nolan said.
“However, that just means that people expect more of us now,” he said.
To help manage these greater demands, UNSW had evolved its support model from a vertical approach where IT staff managed servers based on a particular operating systems to a horizontal approach where staff supported either the virtualised server layer, the storage layer, the network layer or the virtual data centre layer, Nolan said.
UNSW had also consolidated 35 data centres ranging from single servers to fully-fledged faculty sized data centres down to two primary locations and a third back up centre, he said.
“We got into the whole lifecycle of it. Consolidation drives virtualisation which drives higher density computing which drives switching which drives cabling and virtualisation of your networks,” he said. “Now we’re into running blade chassis with 10 gig uplinks. It’s a continuing nightmare story of the rush of technology forward, but if we weren’t doing we wouldn’t be able to keep pace with the business.”