Community IT Innovators. Established 1993. Serving social mission organizations with integrated technology services you can trust.

CITI partnered with the William James Foundation on Thursday, July 9th to present a seminar on Green IT.  Nate Solloway, CITI Systems Engineer, discussed what it really means to go green with your technology, including environmentally-friendly practices such as virtualization, green procurement and computer disposal, and desktop power management.  Some highlights:

• Server Virtualization remains a hot topic and is fast becoming just the way things are done, particularly with servers, as the resource efficiency gained is significant.

• Desktop virtualization is the next step that can be taken. Replacing a desktop with a virtual desktop and thin client can significantly reduce power consumption to just a small fraction of previous consumption for each virtual desktop user.

• Desktop Power Management software can significantly reduce power consumption for users who cannot easily switch to a virtual desktop.

• Reusing or donating old computers that are nearing the end of their life cycle, but still usable, can further reduce the environmental impact of your equipment.

Contact us to find out more about our Green IT Assessments and implementing the above suggestions.

At this year’s Nonprofit Technology Conference, CITI Director of Professional Network Services Matthew Eshleman, along with Earthjustice’s Peter Campbell, presented a session covering virtualization technology. We’re pleased to announce that their session was included in NTEN’s June newsletter summary of the best NTC sessions, selected based on conference participant feedback on each of the sessions.   A summary article by Matthew and Peter on “Virtualization: The Revolution in Server Management and Why You Should Adopt It” is featured on the NTEN blog. Excerpt:

Most of the discussion related to virtualization has been centered on large data centers and enterprise implementations, but a small network can also take advantage of the benefits that virtualization has to offer. Here are three common scenarios:

• Using a new server running a virtualization hypervisor to migrate an existing server
• Using a new server to consolidate 3-4 physical servers to save on electric & warranty expenses
• Using a storage area network (SAN) to add flexibility and expandability to the infrastructure

In the first scenario, an existing server is converted into a virtual server running on new physical hardware…

Visit the NTEN Blog to read the full article.

The annual NTEN Non-profit Technology Conference (NTC) was April 26th-28th in San Francisco, CA.  CITI staff were there to learn more and share our knowledge about the latest developments in technology for social mission organizations.

CITI’s Director of Professional Network Services Matthew Eshleman presented scenarios in which organizations of different sizes can employ virtualization to maximize their technology resources. He presented along with Peter Campbell of Earthjustice, and their presentation was well-received.

NTEN is bringing the conference to those who could not attend with their NTC-live site, where you can find live blogs of many sessions, session materials, and more.

It’s time to admit I have a problem.   I keep telling myself I can quit any time I want.

I can’t look at a software product without thinking “I bet I should virtualize that”.

My habit started innocuously enough.  Microsoft sent me a sample of a product called Microsoft Virtual PC.  On my XP laptop I installed a virtual instance of Windows 98 and was suddenly able to play some of old favorite RPG’s that never developed support for NT architecture.  Maybe it was being lost in the imaginary world of Baldur’s Gate, but I began to see possibilities for using virtualization at the desktop level.

When I go into small organizations and have to take their domain controller offline, I have a ready made one on my laptop ready to join to the domain so the desktop computers can authenicate to the virtual instance all day while maintenance is performed.

Suddenly I was carrying test configurations of everything I needed to troubleshoot.  Windows systems with various versions of Outlook, Linux desktops for testing network compatibility and doing network scanning.   With virtualization, my laptop became simultaneously a sandbox for learning and a toolbox for administering networks.

One organization I support had a challenge of doing Arabic and Hebrew HTML newsletters.  Getting proper right-to-left formatting was difficult without international versions of Windows XP installed.  Those versions had problems with some of the other software we used, so I put Virtual PC at each desk and people could run the international version of XP for specialized tasks.

Virtualization is a buzzword now, but there was a time when virtualizing servers was new and scary.  Desktop virtualization is an easy way to become familiar with the basics of the technology before starting on virtualizing your servers.  There are two free products available that make this an easy start.  If you have installation disks for Windows XP, you can be up and runniing in minutes.

VirtualBox is the desktop favorite in our office.  It’s free, rugged, and works across Windows, Mac and Linux.  It’s lacking a little on the networking tricks side, but for a non-Windows user who needs that one Windows only program to run in a window, it’s a nice choice.

Microsoft Virtual PC  is also a free download.  I often use it to acclimate people to the idea of virtualization.  The interface is very Microsoft style, so long term Windows users are not intimidated by it.  Unfortunately, it is not cross-platform, so not handy for a non-Windows shop that needs some Windows licenses to run some software.

Come back next week and I’ll be using VirtualBox to walk through an installation and explain some of the vocabulary you run into.

When it came time to plan our latest network upgrade at Community IT Innovators we opted to virtualize all our server infrastructure.   As a typical 60 person organization we have file, mail, database, web and remote access servers.  With our systems and software going through the usual 3-5 year replacement cycle, our IT staff was looking for a solution provided the most flexibility going forward.   Virtualization provided the benefits of a smaller server room footprint and a smaller carbon footprint.

We began exploring virtualizing servers when troubleshooting existing installations with performance monitoring tools.  We were consistently surprised by what a small percentage of the processor these hulking servers were using most of the day.  Large in footprint and small in efficiency,  we began exploring products that would allow us to consolidate the need of keeping operating systems separate but on a shared piece of hardware.

Virtualizing the standalone servers on our server room proved to be consistent with the Green IT guidelines that are starting to trickle down to even the smallest organizations.  CDW’s data centers studied the effects of virtualizing servers and power consumption.  A standalone server had 75% percent of the carbon footprint of a mid-sized automobile.    The same functionality virtualized and then sharing hardware had a carbon footprint of 1/6 of the original with no loss in delivering services.

Reduced carbon footprint is nice for the environment and the bottom line.  Most network administrators don’t see the power bills, but I bet most accountants at organizations would like to see that cost reduced.

Virtualization has proven a boon to network administration as well.  Hardware conflicts are few because each virtualized instance has identical hardware.  Virtualizing also reduces fear of applying patches.  Each server is just a file that is easy enough to copy or track the changes of.  If a service pack or update creates problem, reverting to the previous night is just a mouse click away.

Our virtualized infrastructure has created a flexibility for our developers.  If they need a new server stood up to test a configuration no hardware has to be purchased and we can copy an existing setup.  Our testing and lab has now also standardized on virtualized instances.  Our staff is able to stand up the latest products in minutes rather than hours.

Virtualization is a panacea that has solved a number of administrative and technical hurdles for us.  We’ll be continuing to blog about virtualization in coming weeks.  If you’ve heard the buzzwords and been curious we’ll be walking you through setting up your first virtualized server and familiarizing you with the technology.  Virtualization is one of the easiest new technologies to grasp once the initial hurdle is jumped.