CIO Magazine: Dealing with legal technicalities (May 2007) - Gary Flood

Ian Lauwerys, IT director of law firm, Kennedys, explains the benefits of virtualisation when setting up a remote office.

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Case Study: Kennedys Virtualisation - Intercept IT

Accelerated business growth at law firm Kennedys has resulted in new offices and an influx of lawyers and other staff worldwide. Relocation of its three London offices to a central headquarters provided the ideal opportunity to upgrade its core IT infrastructure to meet the firm’s evolving demands. Working alongside Intercept, Kennedys overhauled its global data centres, implemented a resilient disaster recovery (DR) plan and improved remote working capabilities. The new facilities are projected to save the firm upwards of £350,000 a year.

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Introduction to Server Virtualisation

What is virtualisation and what are its benefits? This article first appeared in "Managing Partner" magazine, Volume 9 Issue 8, 2nd February 2007.

Download the full version including illustrations in PDF format below.

Virtualisation:reality

“Virtualisation” is the latest buzzword sweeping through the IT department, and unlike many over-hyped technology fads, it seems that this one really can deliver on its promises. As the 7,000 attendees of the VMWorld conference will attest, virtualisation is re-shaping the IT landscape.

The Fall and Rise of Virtualisation

Virtualisation was invented in the mainframe era of the 1960s in order to make better use of expensive computer resources. It is a technique for dividing one physical computer into several “virtual” computers, thus making it possible to perform multiple tasks simultaneously.

The technology had fallen out of favour by the mid ‘80s. For one thing the low cost of PC-based servers made mainframes irrelevant to all but the largest businesses. For another, improvements to server operating systems made it possible to undertake multiple tasks simultaneously on the same computer.

Virtualisation didn’t fade into complete obscurity however. Both Citrix and Microsoft’s Terminal Server products use virtualisation techniques to run desktop applications such as Word for multiple users on a single shared server. Forty years after it was invented however, the wheel has turned full circle and virtualisation is now solving the headaches of a new generation of server-based applications.

Too Much Power

Today’s IT department faces a new problem; computer power is cheaper than ever, but hard to make use of efficiently. Over its lifetime, your firm’s email or accounts server may only use 15% of its available capacity. This huge waste of resources has a direct impact on your firm’s bottom line.

For example, buying a fairly modest server, housing it in central London and operating it over a typical five year lifespan will cost your firm anywhere up to £10,000. Up to 75% of the money you put in to in capital investment, floor space and electricity is wasted.

Even a modest set-up of perhaps 20 servers will lose a firm £150,000 of profit over five years. This waste isn’t profligacy on the part IT department; rather it is a compromise designed to address a number of problems:

• Each server must have enough capacity to cope with peaks in demand which occur for a few hours in a day, or on a few days in a month. Your accounts server will be working at full stretch during the year-end billing run, but may spend much of the time idling along at 5% or 10% of its capacity. It will use nearly as much electrical power (and thus generate as much heat) when idle as when it is working at full capacity.
• Servers running several applications tend to be less reliable due to conflicts between those applications. Software vendors and IT teams prefer to install each application on its own server to guarantee that it will be available when the firm needs it.
• Managing the allocation of resources to different applications running on the same server is difficult. Applications compete for resources rather than being allocated them based on how important they are to your firm’s business.
• Moving an existing application that has outgrown the demands of its old server to a new one is expensive, risky and potentially disruptive to the business. IT departments sensibly over-specify servers to put the evil day off as long as possible.

Until now, the most pragmatic response to these challenges has been the “one application, one server” approach adopted by most IT departments but the result is unsatisfactory for both the IT department and the firm’s Partners.

The frustrations faced by Westminster firm Winckworth Sherwood are entirely typical. According to IT Manager Sam Luxford-Watts, “We were running out of space and available power in the server room. We were forced to purchase additional servers for each new project, yet we knew that many of the servers we already had were under-utilised.”

Virtualisation to the Rescue

At its heart, virtualisation is a relatively simple piece of software that pretends to be computer hardware. All that the IT team need to do is install some additional virtualisation software on a new server before installing the operating system in the usual manner (Microsoft Windows Server for example).

The extra virtualisation software fools the operating system into thinking it has exclusive control of the server’s processors, memory and disk drives and thus everything behaves exactly as it would in a normal installation. Virtualisation’s neat trick is that a second operating system can now be installed on the same server and it too thinks it has exclusive control of the hardware resources.

Multiple “virtual servers” can be created to make full use of the physical server’s capacity, whilst keeping each one isolated from the misdemeanours of other virtual servers on the same machine. One virtual server can crash or be re-started with no impact on its neighbours.

Just as usefully, each virtual server is entirely self-contained within a handful of (very large) files and, as we’ll see, this solves a number of previously intractable problems.

Quarts into Pint Pots

Virtualisation’s big planet (and wallet) saving benefit is that it eliminates energy-wasting equipment. The IT team can now install multiple virtual servers on a single box, and decide how much memory, processor and disk resource is allocated to each application.

Luxford-Watts reports “Virtualisation has enabled us to cut our physical servers from 22 to just seven. We found it hard to believe at first, but our systems are more responsive with less hardware, as we can now allocate resources to applications as they require them.”

Whilst the results achieved by Winckworth Sherwood are remarkable, they are by no means an exceptional case. According to Taylor Vinters’ Director of IT, Steve Sumner, “Our firm has achieved significant savings in space, power consumption and cooling requirements since we introduced virtualisation. Of our 41 main servers, half are now virtualised and run on just four physical boxes.”

VMWare, a leading vendor of virtualisation technology, estimates that its customers are currently running more than one million virtual servers, with estimated annual energy savings in excess of $560 million. Whilst that is about the same as the residents of New England spend each year on heating, ventilation and cooling, it’s just the tip of a very large (and melting) iceberg of potential energy savings.

Averting Disaster

Most applications have to be moved a new server at some point in their life. In the very worst case the equipment may have been destroyed by a fire or similar disaster, but often the cause is more a mundane problem such as breakdown or the need to move to a more powerful box as the firm grows.

Unfortunately, it is not a simple matter of copying everything from one server to another and hitting the “on” button. Configuring the operating system to support a new set of hardware is fraught with problems and the end result is often an unreliable server.

The usual solutions are either to pay a hefty premium to duplicate critical equipment at another location, or to spend several weeks re-installing everything from scratch. The latter approach never produces an exact match for the old system and isn’t an acceptable option in a disaster recovery situation.

By way of contrast, virtualisation presents a standardised set of “virtual hardware” to the operating system regardless of the underlying physical hardware. Moving a virtual server between completely different types of hardware is simply a matter of installing the virtualisation software and then copying the handful of virtual server files to the new machine.

Taylor Vinters; Sumner went on to say, “Operating from our single Cambridge site brings additional business continuity risks, and so we must replicate all key systems and data at an off-site location. Virtualisation has enabled my team to create this crucial safety net using just two physical servers located in a specialist data centre, once agan achieving considerable cost savings when compared with a traditional solution.”

In another example, one of two brand-new servers decided to break down in Kennedys’ recently opened Sydney office. It took us a matter of minutes to transfer all the virtual servers from the failed server to the remaining one. The fault was repaired and the virtual servers copied back again with no material impact on the firm’s business.

Virtualisation gives everyone the opportunity to achieve a level of resilience that was hitherto the preserve of only the largest firms. An entire IT set-up can be replicated using very modest amount of equipment and time.

Far-flung Outposts

The project to launch the Kennedys Sydney office also illustrates further benefits of the “hardware agnostic” nature of virtual servers. Flying out a large team of IT staff and suppliers to set up the systems for the new office was ruled out on grounds of cost and practicality. From previous experience, we knew that installing everything on hardware in the UK and then shipping it overseas was equally costly and would miss the opening deadline.

The solution was to build a set of six virtual servers in the UK using our experienced staff and suppliers. This enabled us to create a system of the highest standard and prove that it was fully working. At the same time a local IT supplier in Sydney procured and set up a pair of suitable servers plus the virtualisation software (in this case a product from VMWare).

The fully tried and tested virtual servers were copied to a backup tape and couriered down under. Three days later we had a the complete system up and running, right on schedule and for about 30% less than our cost estimates for a more traditional approach.

What’s more, because the virtual servers are just files, the process can be repeated effortlessly. According to Luxford-Watts “We set up all of our new servers by copying existing templates. We can create a new server in minutes with no set-up or configuration errors, which has drastically cut time to install new applications and upgrades.”

It is easy to see how having a complete set of IT systems packed and ready to go would save time and money in other scenarios, for example in a merger situation or the set up of a litigation support system for a major case.

Security Headaches Cured

One of the biggest headaches for any IT department is dealing with the increasing pace at which new security vulnerabilities are exploited. Major threats to the firm’s IT systems require the team to respond in a few hours or minutes rather than days or weeks. Since most specialist legal applications have exacting set-up requirements, the rush to address a new security threat carries a significant risk of breaking the very thing one is trying to protect.

Virtualisation makes it possible to take a copy of an existing server, apply a security patch and then test it in an isolated environment within a few minutes. If no problems are discovered, the updated server can be copied back in to the live system immediately.

According to Sumner, “Virtualisation has released us from this Catch-22 situation. We can maintain a high degree of security, whilst at the same time being confident of recovering immediately from unforeseen problems caused by a new security fix. For the firm’s partners, ensuring that systems are available when needed is far more important than any cost savings that we have achieved.”

The ability to quickly copy, update and test is also proving useful in more routine tasks. Luxford-Watts added “We were able to completely mirror our live email system on a test network and upgrade it to a new version without the need to purchase additional equipment. This entire upgrade was completed without any interruption to service.”

The Main Players

Unsurprisingly, virtualisation is the new battleground for software corporations and it is far too early predict who will emerge as the eventual winner. The two front-runners are Microsoft and VMWare (a subsidiary of computer storage giant EMC), with a whole host of others vying for a place at the head of the pack.

VMWare has a clear advantage in the speed with which it has innovated, helping it to grow from a start-up to a serious global player in just seven years. Offering a comprehensive range of in-house and third party-software for smoothing the transition to and managing the operation of a virtualised environment has made it a clear favourite with overworked IT managers.

Microsoft has been perhaps less innovative and is pursing its favourite market-domination strategy of buying up innovative technology companies, application virtualisation specialist Softricity being the most recent example. These newly acquired products are quickly assimilated and released at a low cost or as add-ons to Microsoft’s lucrative software assurance agreements.

Both main players have a range of products covering both the desktop and server virtualisation spheres, including a number of free products aimed at those dipping a toe in the water. VMWare’s more cohesive product range certainly inspires fervent devotion amongst users as witnessed at their VMWorld conference. The event was likened by some to a “Californian love-in for IT folk.”

Having a better product doesn’t guarantee success against Microsoft however, as erstwhile server giant Novell can attest. Regardless of the current uncertainty, virtualisation is being adopted rapidly by firms both small and large. The range of benefits obtained with little or no disruption makes it irresistibly attractive to both IT managers and Partners with an eye on the bottom line.

See the PDF version for additional sidebars and illustrations

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Legal Technology Journal: Destination Virtualisation (July 2008) - Joanna Goodman

IT director Ian Lauwerys explains how virtualisation has helped set up and integrate a series of new offices into Kennedys existing system in record time, while minimising costs and disruption to the business.

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Remote Office Virtualisation - VMware Case Study - Kennedys Sydney Office

Kennedys

Kennedys is one of the leading dispute resolution law firms in the City of London. The firm has 89 partners and six UK offices. Worldwide, Kennedys has offices in Spain, Dubai, Hong Kong and New Zealand and associated offices in the rest of the world. The firm is a major player in the insurance/reinsurance dispute resolution field and also has works in areas such as employment law, clinical negligence, and company and commercial law. The firm’s clients include many of the world’s leading insurers.

The challenge

Kennedys required a new office in Sydney, Australia, but setting up the specialist applications used in the legal environment would be time-consuming, and resources to support the roll-out were limited. Ian Lauwerys, IT Director for Kennedys, was sure that there was a faster and more efficient solution.

Lauwerys decided that a virtualized approach would be the answer. Because the applications within virtual machines are independent of the physical hardware, Kennedys could build the virtualized servers in the UK and have the project installation completed by a local partner, avoiding having to send UK staff across. Kennedys would save on hardware and shipping costs, while the overall length of time spent on the full roll-out was reduced from about eighteen months to three.

This case study was first published by VMware.

Download the PDF version.

Solution

Using VMware, the installation of applications was carried out in the UK and completed by a local partner in Australia. This process was completed in three months, and significantly faster than previous physical offices had been implemented

Deployment environment

• VMware® ESX Server 2.5
• VMware® VirtualCenter 1.5
• VMware ESX Server and VMware VirtualCenter
• Two HP DL385, with 8 GB RAM and two dualcore CPUs
• One HP DL380 with 2 GB RAM and one CPU
• Applications deployed include SQL Server, Exchange Server 2003 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server, as well as specialist legal applications such as Tikit, BigHand and Claimbase

Results

• Complete set up of new office in Australia took only three months. Previous roll-outs took six months to be installed, while completing the entire installation process would take even longer
• Roll-out of legal applications was completed by experienced staff at head office, eliminating travel costs
• Server hardware required reduced by 50%
• Overall costs for completing installation of new office reduced by up to 50%
• Using virtual machines ensures that there is no downtime for applications, even in the event of a physical hardware failure
• Scalability of solution means that Kennedys can meet its growth targets - the Sydney office is now equipped to support over 75 staff
• In future, completing new office roll-outs will be faster - Lauwerys estimates that each one will take about a month from start to finish

© 1998-2007 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. Protected by one or more U.S. Patents Nos. 6,397,242, 6,496,847, 6,704,925, 6,711,672, 6,725,289, 6,735,601, 6,785,886, 6,789,156, 6,795,966, 6,880,022, 6,944,699, 6,961,806, 6,961,941, 7,069,413, 7,082,598, 7,089,377, 7,111,086, 7,111,145, 7,117,481, 7,149, 843 and 7,155,558; patents pending. VMware, the VMware “boxes” logo and design, Virtual SMP and VMotion are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

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Storage Virtualisation - Hitachi Solutions - Kennedys Data Centre

Hitachi Data Systems Success Story

Accelerated business growth at insurance law firm Kennedys has resulted in new offices and an influx of lawyers and other staff worldwide. Consolidation of its London offices to a new headquarters in London provided the ideal opportunity to upgrade its core IT infrastructure to meet the firm’s changing IT demands and future requirements. As part of a data centre overhaul, Kennedys deployed a Hitachi Data Systems storage solution to support both its escalating data requirements and business continuity. The new disaster recovery plan alone has saved it £200,000 per year.

“Working alongside Hitachi partner Intercept, we’ve successfully overhauled our core IT infrastructure. Not only that, but we’ve done it without disruption to our employees and clients, we’ve done it to budget and we’ve done it to deadline.” Ian Lauwerys, IT Director, Kennedys.

This case study first appears on the Hitachi Data Systems Partner Marketing site.

Download the PDF version.

Hitachi Storage Helps Law Firm Kennedys Keep Pace with Business Success

Kennedys is a global law firm headquartered in the City of London that specialises in litigation and dispute resolution. The firm has expanded steadily over the last 15 years, largely as a result of organic growth, and it is now firmly established as a major player in the insurance/ reinsurance dispute resolution field. Today, Kennedys boasts an impressive client list, including many of world’s leading insurers who are served by the law firm’s 100+ partners and 600+ employees around the world.

The last five years in particular have seen accelerated growth at Kennedys as it has opened new offices in Australia, Singapore, Spain, Dubai and the UK to accommodate the increase in business and influx of new partners, lawyers and support staff. The firm, which prides itself on its commitment to innovation through technology, needed to upgrade its IT system to keep pace with its fast growing business. When Kennedys decided to relocate its three London offices to a new headquarters building in the City’s Square Mile, it recognised the move as the perfect opportunity to undertake a major upgrade of the firm’s data centres, which acted as the hub of IT services for its network of UK and international offices.

IT Director at Kennedys, Ian Lauwerys, elaborates: “Some of the court cases we handle have tens or even hundreds of millions of pounds resting on them. Consequently, it’s imperative our legal experts have fast and reliable access to key documents and information wherever and whenever they need them. We simply cannot tolerate system outages that impact on information delivery.”

He continues: “As a firm, we’ve always been early adopters of technology. For instance, when we opened a new office in Sydney a couple of years ago we used virtualisation technology for a fast rollout of our IT infrastructure. However, there was no denying that our onsite data centre and remote backup site were reaching their limits in terms of capacity, performance and reliability. It made a lot of sense to refresh our storage and server platforms as part of the relocation project.”

Kennedys was also keen to bring its disaster recovery strategy in house. The firm was carrying out backups using a managed backup service to a remote data centre, which, while effective, was extremely costly.

Evaluating the Options

Lauwerys and the IT department began a thorough evaluation process to select an IT partner to help them with the relocation of the IT infrastructure. After much analysis, the team selected Intercept, a company which specialises in delivering virtual IT infrastructures and which already had a strong track record in successfully delivering IT services to Kennedys — including the Sydney office virtualisation project.

“There were many reasons for choosing Intercept, over and above their track record with us,” explains Lauwerys. “Ultimately, they proposed the most compelling data centre and disaster recovery solutions, both of which were underpinned with Hitachi storage.”

Kennedys placed great importance on the storage element of the total solution, so Lauwerys’ team spent months independently evaluating various storage vendors. It was essential the chosen storage solution could handle the law firm’s escalating data requirements, boost application performance and significantly enhance its disaster recovery strategy. “Our legacy system was based on aging DotHill SANs but we knew we needed to move up to an enterprise-class solution. We looked at all the big storage vendors, IBM, NetApp and EMC, for example, but Hitachi Data Systems emerged as the clear winner time and time again,” explains Lauwerys. “It was reassuring for us that Intercept was a partner of Hitachi Data Systems and that Hitachi was its storage provider of choice.”

The Deployment Begins…

Locating a data centre at Kennedys’ new headquarters in the heart of London’s financial district would have been expensive, so the firm decided to base its central IT infrastructure offsite in two data centres, one acting as the primary site, the other as a disaster recovery site.

Together, IT staff at Kennedys and Intercept consultants deployed seven HP ProLiant servers running VMware in the new data centres — an impressive consolidation from the previous 40 servers. Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 1000 systems were also installed at each site, providing enterprise-class storage. The migration from the legacy infrastructure to the new virtualised environment went extremely smoothly, with no disruption or interruption of service experienced by Kennedys’ 600+ staff.

The Benefits Roll In

After just a few months in the new headquarters, Kennedys was already reaping huge benefits. With the new Hitachi-based storage area network, the average backup window has been halved. Explains Lauwerys: “The volume of data we need to back up is growing exponentially, but we have to do it for business continuity reasons. In the past, we’ve been worried about backups disrupting other IT systems and application delivery, but with the Hitachi solution in place, we have plenty of capacity and performance.”

Kennedys estimates that its new disaster recovery strategy alone is saving it £200,000 each year. With the latest solution, a Hitachi Adaptable Modular Storage 1000 system at the disaster recovery site holds a mirrored copy of all the data (such as legal documents, databases, files and e-mails) stored at the primary site. The frequency with which data is replicated is determined by the importance of the business application — financial information, for example, is copied hourly. “With the disaster recovery plan that Intercept developed and put in place, we’re better protected and at a fraction of the cost,” says Lauwerys.

The benefits of the virtualised server environment are also clear to see. By significantly reducing its pool of physical servers, Kennedys is saving money at the new data centres through reduced power consumption, cooling requirements and floor space. Furthermore, the virtualised server environment is far simpler to manage and provides maximum resiliency, resulting in highly available applications. Relying on Hitachi as an established leader in storage virtualisation, Kennedys expects to leverage this expertise in the near future, as its infrastructure becomes increasingly virtualised.

“Once again, the experience of working with Intercept has been a success from start to finish,” says Lauwerys. "They have provided excellent consultancy and have strived to transfer as much of their knowledge and skills as possible. This really empowers my team and enables Kennedys to take our infrastructure to the next level.”

Lauwerys concludes: “Working alongside Hitachi partner Intercept, we’ve successfully overhauled our core IT infrastructure. Not only that, but we’ve done it without disruption to our employees and customers, we’ve done it to budget and we’ve done it to deadline.”

About Intercept

Based in the UK, Intercept focuses on helping companies of all sizes reap the rewards of virtualised IT and unified communications. It collaborates with clients to reduce costs, improve user performance and increase business agility. The company has years of real world experience designing innovative solutions to fit client needs, all delivered with exceptional tailored support. Intercept has virtualised over 3,000 servers, over 100,000 desktops and more than 2,000 different applications in 30 languages, realising millions of pounds worth of savings to its customers. Some 60,000 users rely on Intercept’s managed and online services. As specialists in delivering virtual IT infrastructure, Intercept consultants are different. Working alongside leading technology companies, like Hitachi Data Systems, and using the most resilient, scalable and high-performing technology available today, Intercept’s solutions empower client teams to get the very most out of their information and communications technologies (ICT) investment.

Hitachi is a registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd., in the United States and other countries. Hitachi Data Systems is a registered trademark and service mark of Hitachi, Ltd., in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks, service marks and company names mentioned in this document or Web site are properties of their respective owners. Notice: This document is for informational purposes only, and does not set forth any warranty, express or limited, concerning any equipment or service offered or to be offered by Hitachi Data Systems. This document describes some capabilities that are conditioned on a maintenance contract with Hitachi Data Systems being in effect, and that may be configuration dependent and features that may not be currently available. Contact your local Hitachi Data Systems sales office for information on feature and product availability. © Hitachi Data Systems Corporation 2008. All Rights Reserved. SS-152-00 DG November 2008.

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The Servers are in the Post

Kennedys uses virtualisation to open new Sydney office.

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