YuuZoo contains server sprawl without cages

Mobile content aggregator, YuuZoo, which distributes wireless value-added services to billions of mobile end users across the globe, has reduced its server environment by almost 50 per cent with the introduction of blade servers and virtualisation.

YuuZoo has built a global distribution network that enables personalized distribution of services and provides wireless content owners and developers, advertisers and media companies with new revenue possibilities.

The YuuZoo network includes access to more than 200 leading wireless carriers, portals and wireless phone manufacturers in over 50 countries across the globe, enabling a reach to more than half of the world's three billion mobile subscribers.

The upstream media network includes hundreds of leading wireless content developers and owners giving YuuZoo one of the world's largest content libraries designed specifically for mobile phone use.

The company currently supports about 50 internal users in four offices and mobile applications located in four different co-location sites using 40 servers in its Windows/Linux environment.

Working with ICSP Solutions, Virtual Iron and Dell, YuuZoo expects to reduce its servers to eight.

In addition to the savings on servers, the company also expects significant reductions in its power, cooling and space requirements.

Using two Dell blade server (4 Blades each) SANs and Virtual Iron, YuuZoo has also been able reduce its co-location space from four sites to two, significantly reducing hosting costs.

YuuZoo CTO, Anthony Caccioloa, tested "pretty much all of the virtualization offerings" before ICSP introduced the Virtual Iron solution.

Cacciola expects significant operational benefits using Virtual Iron's advanced virtual infrastructure capabilities.

For example, he said YuuZoo can now provision a new server in a virtual environment and have it up and running in minutes rather than the week or more it used to take to get a physical server operational.

The company is also taking advantage of Virtual Iron's high availability and disaster recovery capabilities using 'LiveMigration' and 'LiveCapacity' for automatic failover and automated policy-based management.

"Virtual Iron combines an open source hypervisor with advanced virtualization services including an automated X2V conversion software solution that enables customers to easily migrate workloads (data, applications, and operating systems) across physical, virtual, blade and image-based infrastructures in any direction," Caccioloa said.

"It also takes full advantage of the latest hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities from Intel and AMD to deliver near native performance."

Caccioloa said the software offers large memory support (up to 128 GB), large SMP capabilities (up to eight virtual CPUs) and the ability to virtualize server platforms with up to 32 physical CPUs.

Unlike other virtualization solutions, he said it includes LiveProvisioning, which is a "zero touch" automated deployment capability that eliminates the need for physical installation or management of virtualization software on virtualized physical servers.

The managing director of Virtual Iron's Asia Pacific operations, Craig Stockdale, said by removing the barriers of complexity and cost, more users worldwide can take advantage of the significant benefits of enterprise-class server virtualization.