Virtualisation’s virtues in terms of its ability to deliver flexibility and agility have long been espoused...
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation believes that virtualisation could put it on the front foot should the Federal Government’s Commission of Audit demand sweeping change from public sector bodies. The Abbott Government established the Commission shortly after being elected, promising a root and branch investigation of the public sector as part of a broad attempt to rein in costs.
The first draft of the report is to be delivered in January, with a final version by March 2014.
According to Andrew Dimech, head of IT at ANSTO, the organisation is now waiting to see what the Commission of Audit will recommend, but virtualisation has helped it prepare for the worst. “I want to be on the front foot,” and ready to shift direction if required he said at a VMware media event in Sydney this week.
Having introduced a virtual desktop infrastructure to 65-70 percent of the organisation – some end users remain resistant to thin clients, described as “box-huggers” by Dimech – he said that although the migration to thin clients and VDI had been cost neutral for ANSTO it had created a flexible end-user environment that could be swiftly adjusted for any future changes which might be required by the Commission of Audit and had also prepared ANSTO for greater deployment of cloud-based services planned for the future.
“We are actively planning what workloads we can take to the cloud,” said Dimech.
Meanwhile the Tatts Group, which runs many of Australia’s largest gaming and wagering businesses, sees virtualisation as an important ally to manage both growth and uneven customer demand.
Chief technology officer Matthew Maw said that the company tackled 20 million phone calls each year, monitored 200,000 poker machines and operated in 10,500 physical venues. Virtualisation provided the organisation with the flexibility to move workloads around at will to cope with demand spikes on race days, for example. Maw said it had also primed the company to be able to swiftly integrate new businesses which were acquired by the Tatts Group, saying that in many cases it was possible to have a hosted solution up and running for a new business in 48 hours.
