Alatum is Singapore’s largest national grid service provider. It is spearheaded by Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), which leads a consortium of more than 20 leading technology providers to provide commercial grid computing services to business enterprises and public sector agencies. Alatum was launched in November 2008 as part of the government’s effort to promote adoption of grid computing and establish Singapore as the shared services hub in Asia.

Alatum is powered by 2,400 processors and contains a massive 16 terabytes of storage space. As a pioneer in the provision of commercial grid service, Alatum offers customers cost-effective software applications, computing power and storage, and other easily managed solutions on a pay-per-use and on-demand basis over the Internet. To meet the utility computing needs of public sector agencies and commercial organizations, it can deliver enterprise-ready computing resources based on a combination of delivery models including utility computing, platform-as-a-service and software-as-a-service (SaaS).

The challenge: Providing scalable IT solutions to thousands of customers

Alatum is committed to developing world-class datacenters equipped with state-of-the-art servers and a secure and reliable high-speed network to deliver 24 x 7 utility computing resources to thousands of customers simultaneously.  Alatum must provide on-the-fly scalability to cater to customers’ needs to expand or reduce their IT requirements for business growth or for special projects, and provide instant access to a pool of customized applications around the clock.

In order to cater to the myriad computing requirements of thousands of clients, Alatum required a powerful server virtualization infrastructure that could deliver standard, well-managed computing services and state-of-the-art technologies over the Internet.

Implementing Citrix XenServer and Citrix Essentials

Alatum chose Citrix® XenServer™ and Citrix Essentials™ for XenServer™ to deliver the virtual infrastructure for its cloud, commencing with an initial set of 200 virtualized servers, because of the Citrix solution’s unique capabilities for supporting cloud computing environments. The virtual infrastructure can support a maximum of 1,600 physical servers based on a sustainable ratio of four to eight virtual machines per physical machine.

XenServer and Citrix Essentials has transformed Alatum’s datacenters into dynamic delivery centers that can deliver IT infrastructure services to its customers on demand and via a consumption-based pricing model.

Running on the Xen® open source platform, XenServer with Citrix Essentials offers a range of features including automated high availability, workload balancing, lifecycle automation, dynamic provisioning and native integration with leading storage platforms.  This solution also includes the XenCenter™ management system, shared storage repositories, server resource pools, live relocation, Windows® optimization and disaster recovery support.

Rapid scalability for optimal responsiveness

XenServer and Citrix Essentials offered unique, ready-to-implement server virtualization capability with built-in features and functionality that fit Alatum’s requirements, allowing the provider to accelerate the pace of go-to-market deployment.

“The solution has easy deployment and enterprise-ready features such as centralized multi-server management and live migration capabilities that enable Alatum to scale rapidly, enhancing our responsiveness in turning on services for customers,” said Mr. Alvin Kok, chief, Alatum, SingTel.

XenCenter, the powerful multi-server management tool, enables Alatum to manage the virtualized environment easily and intelligently and optimize resources with zero downtime. Enhanced control and visibility of the virtualized resources of the datacenters are important benefits, enabling Alatum to ensure the highest levels of availability and performance for its customers.

The Citrix technology easily integrated into Alatum’s existing management solutions through powerful, programmable Web services application programming interfaces (APIs). It also supports management APIs standardized by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF).

In addition, Alatum can leverage the Citrix Cloud Computing™ ecosystem of partners to strengthen its application and platform offerings with value-added security, high availability and multi-tenant services that can enhance customer satisfaction and retention.

“We are extremely pleased that our collaboration with Citrix in deploying XenServer and Citrix Essentials as our virtual infrastructure has enabled us to deliver fast, reliable and secure cloud services on a utility-based or on-demand model. This solution provides tremendous cost savings and business value for our customers,” said Mr. Kok.

About the Citrix solution

XenServer is the only enterprise-class, cloud-proven server virtualization platform that delivers the critical features of live migration and centralized multi-server management at no cost. Citrix Essentials provides a set of management and automation capabilities that extends the capabilities of either the XenServer or Microsoft® Hyper-V to help customers transform datacenters into proactive and automated delivery centers.

©2009 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix®, Xen®, XenServer™, Citrix Delivery Center™, XenCenter™, Citrix Cloud Center™ and Citrix Essentials™ are trademarks or registered trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Microsoft® is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.  All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.