VMware Provides Cloud Computing Infrastructure for Siemens IT Solutions and Services

By VSM News Staff
published: Tuesday, November 18 2008

VMware Platform Offers Flexible and Secure Environment that Allows Siemens to Tap into Capacity On Demand, Quadruple Server Utilization and Cut Hardware Costs by 70 Percent.

PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- VMware, Inc. (NYSE:VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced that Siemens IT Solutions and Services, which works with mid-tier to Fortune 100 companies, has deployed VMware's industry-leading management and virtualization suite, VMware Infrastructure 3, to provide a secure, reliable and flexible platform for its customers' production and pre-production application environments.

Among the many services offered by Siemens, customers are increasingly interested in hosted solutions that can support variable traffic loads. To address this market demand, Siemens has joined with the VMware vCloud Initiative by developing a virtualized private cloud environment with VMware Infrastructure to provide capacity on demand for mission-critical applications. Siemens used the VMware platform to build out its cloud environment, improve server utilization from 20 percent to over 60 percent, and reduce hardware expenditures by approximately 70 percent compared to the cost of building a cloud environment without virtualization.

Siemens IT Solutions and Services, an operating company of Siemens Corporation, offers consulting services, systems integration, software development, and IT infrastructure management. The business unit has annual revenue of $7 billion. Siemens is using VMware Infrastructure to help both internal and external customers address significant business challenges, including the need for green IT, cost reduction, business innovation, more effective customer service, and faster time to market. The VMware platform also gives Siemens cost-effective and reliable disaster recovery and a resilient application environment that enables delivery of service availability up to 99.99 percent.

"For our customers, reliability and speed are essential for ensuring competitiveness," said John Hill, chief technology officer, at Siemens IT Solutions and Services. "With the VMware platform, we help our customers increase availability and reduce deployment time for applications and servers. We can now deploy in one day what used to take many weeks. Of course, VMware is much more than just a shortcut for us. Our customers turn to us for answers to the difficult questions facing their businesses, from financial to strategic to technical. VMware's flexibility, security and manageability allow our people to spend more time addressing ‘upstream' issues and less time on the rudimentary aspects of technology implementation."

Hill also cited the business flexibility that the VMware solution provides as a key factor in Siemens' decision to deploy the VMware platform. He noted that Siemens could now move the entire contents of a server anywhere in the world simply by transmitting a file. The process used to involve backing up the data locally, shipping a tape file to another location, and reloading the data onto a new server. It was a tedious and time-consuming process. Today, the process can be done automatically and electronically in minutes, giving Siemens and its customers tremendous agility and making data accessible wherever and whenever it can be of most value.

"The VMware platform allows us to look at computing resources as a large pool of interchangeable assets rather than a string of unique and separate components," said Hill. "Only VMware technology offers us and our users the range of tools and technologies combined with broad industry support required to host and serve business critical applications. And by building our business on the VMware platform, we will be able to leverage the vCloud technology offerings to deliver new services in the cloud, without losing reliability."

About VMware

VMware (NYSE:VMW) is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2007 revenues of $1.3 billion, more than 120,000 customers and more than 20,000 partners, VMware is one of the fastest growing public software companies. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, VMware is majority-owned by EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC). For more information, visit www.vmware.com.

About Siemens IT Solutions & Services

Siemens IT Solutions and Services, Inc. is one of Siemens operating companies in the United States. Siemens IT Solutions and Services is an internationally leading provider of IT solutions and services. With its comprehensive know-how and specific sector knowledge, this division of Siemens offers solutions and services from a single source - from consulting to systems integration to software development and management of IT infrastructures. Siemens IT Solutions and Services has 43,000 employees and posts annual worldwide sales of more than $6.4 billion USD. For more information, please visit www.usa.siemens.com/it-solutions.