Sleek Networks is a UK provider of specialist hosting and IP services to organisations requiring secure, high-performance and high-availability converged network and Internet connectivity solutions. Its offerings include dedicated and virtual private servers, co-location and bespoke hosting solutions for large and small customers.

In its datacentres in London and Leeds, Sleek has several hundred physical servers running Linux and Windows® operating systems. It uses HP ProLiant servers with Intel VT dual and quad cores.

The Challenge: Boosting Capacity while Reducing Environmental Impact

Sleek continually seeks new technologies to integrate into its product offerings so the company can provide the best solutions at a competitive price. In early 2006, as client demands for computing power, flexibility and capability continued to increase, Ryan McCarry, managing director, realized Sleek needed a way to meet these demands and at the same time reduce environmental impact, energy usage and pricing. McCarry began researching virtualisation technology to provide virtual private servers as an option for clients needing a high-performance Web-hosting service at a lower cost.

“We realized that virtualisation was a way to pass on savings to customers as well as make better use of resources by using less power and outputting less heat while achieving better performance,” said McCarry. “The idea was to give smaller customers access to technologies and services that were typically only available to larger customers, and to give larger customers the ability to control complex virtual platforms built at a lower cost for use internally or for their own customer base.”

Implementing Citrix XenServer, Enterprise Edition

“A number of in-house developers are big fans of Xen and the developer community,” said McCarry. As a result, the Citrix XenServer™ product line was one of the options McCarry wanted to evaluate. After looking at competitive solutions, McCarry noted, “We made a conscious decision to deploy XenServer, Enterprise Edition because of its performance, ease of use and functionality. It’s a light package, and its flexibility and speed suited our customer solutions. We were also impressed with the management console panel software — very useful and highly functional.” Sleek Networks currently has multiple licensed platforms and hundreds of virtual servers running at any given time.

Eco and Cost Benefits from Fewer Physical Servers with Higher Performance

Before choosing Citrix XenServer, Enterprise Edition, Sleek Networks had a significant number of large, hot, power-hungry servers. Now Sleek is able to use fewer physical servers, requiring less power and cooling, yet achieve higher performance from each. Server virtualisation with XenServer has allowed Sleek to use resources to their maximum potential and reduce the datacentre’s environmental impact and carbon footprint.

“There are a number of advantages with running XenServer, Enterprise Edition, and we’re seeing more of them as we go along, including significant savings on power, cooling and management costs,” said McCarry. “Additionally, there are a lot of benefits to us as a provider, including our ‘green’ credentials, but more importantly, from our customers’ point of view, they are getting better performance at a lower price.”

McCarry has been pleased with the ability to load-balance customer platforms by allowing them to mix physical and virtual servers. For example, Sleek has provided customers with a number of load-balanced, Web-front-end virtual private servers on diverse physical boxes, together with a physical dedicated database server. “We can still give them a dedicated box, and even make it a slightly higher specification, but now we can offer anywhere from three to 20 servers on it instead of one. All of these can be running different operating systems and performing many different roles,” said McCarry. “The beauty of virtualisation is its agnostic view towards operating systems, which also results in giving the customer more control.”

Future Plans

With its Citrix XenServer solution, Sleek Networks has improved server performance and utilization, saved on power and cooling, and streamlined management by mirroring server images to provide resilience for business continuity.

Sleek is also looking to future XenServer releases. “The software has a lot of promise, and I’m sure there will be more benefits to come,” concluded McCarry.

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