Network Attached Storage

The Belgian Royal Meteorological Institute (KMI) recently migrated to Red Hat (News - Alert) Enterprise Virtualization. This move is expected to further optimize the efficiency of the company’s existing servers and bring about substantial cost savings. The migration to the virtualized infrastructure will be carried out in phases and is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

KMI studies and analyzes massive amounts of meteorological data to provide weather forecasts. Analysis of such large data requires an advanced and extensive and robust IT infrastructure.

Emmanuel Strobbe, systems engineer at KMI, said, “Thanks to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, we expect to not only be able to realize good cost savings, but also enjoy a very high standard of IT performance, in compliance with our strong open source views.”

Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization replaced several UNIX and Microsoft (News - Alert) Windows servers previously used by KMI. The new Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers platform can now support the Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows software-based virtual servers at KMI. The hardware includes a cluster of four Dell PowerEdge R710 servers featuring EMC (News - Alert) NX4 storage.

KMI will be able to effectively enhance its IT resources, reduce its server downtime, and benefit from lowered costs by moving to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization. The virtualization platform will provide KMI with comprehensive support including for DNS servers, DHCP, webmail, for its customers, an FTP production server for exchanges and for the Zimbra (News - Alert) Collaboration Suite server which currently provides email, calendar and contact management support.

The migration project essentially will serve to enhance how KMI leverages its technology resources. Additionally, the virtualization platform will make tasks such as systems management, testing developments, migration, as well as deployment of new applications easier and faster. The decision to migrate to Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization was based on the incorporation of the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor technology within the platform. 

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