Unisys Pushes Virtual Windows Desktops and Exchange Servers

Published: June 18, 2008

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

While Unisys is still known as a mainframe and high-end X64 server maker, particularly for Windows workloads, the company actually makes a lot of its dough in the services and systems integration area. And because it has a technology bend, being a maker of chips, servers, operating systems, and middleware (back when it wasn't even called that), the company often brings a different twist to a new idea when it puts together a service or solution.

Such is the case with two new solutions announced by Unisys--one relating to Windows platforms and the other relating to storage virtualization--that are all being created under the Real Time Infrastructure, or RTI, marketing umbrella. RTI was announced in March of this year, and is an effort by Unisys to lead with packages of hardware, software, and services (sometimes not based on its own iron, and usually not based on its own software, but always using Unisys expertise) that are sold as complete solutions. This approach is distinct from the way system makers with mainframe expertise think and sell, which is to start with the iron and work up to the application that addresses a business problem. Presumably the solution approach makes more revenue or greases the skids easier since potential customers see that Unisys is less worried about the hardware in the solution than in using engineering and integration to solve pesky problems in the data center and business. RTI covers myriad areas, including desktops, servers, and storage at the hardware level, virtualization of these assets; automation of the provisioning, orchestration, patching, and managing of these assets (both physical and virtual); and services relating to optimizing and assuring that business processes embodied in applications and their systems are available, secure, audited, and properly governed in compliance with laws and best practices.

The 3D Blueprinting approach that is behind the RTI solutions is a long way from just selling a Sperry or Burroughs mainframe or an ES7000 Windows server. That's for sure. But Unisys thinks this is how it can make money in the 21st century. "It is not just about using the latest and greatest technology, but about optimizing what you have and linking business processes in," explains Jody Little, vice president of solutions and services at Unisys.

In its most recent round of RTI announcements, 3D Blueprinting services were made available for virtualization projects, and the effort involves a services engagement that brings a holistic virtualization approach to desktops, servers, and storage within an enterprise. Such blueprints are already available for IT services management, infrastructure optimization, management, automation, and business assurance areas. On the virtualization front, Unisys will work with customers to define their vision for virtualization within their enterprise, set up short-term and long-term goals, and establish the IT strategy to hit those goals. This is the blueprint, and the idea is to get it right the first time, and thereby save grief and money.

In addition to the virtualization blueprinting, Unisys also announced a homegrown version of virtual desktops running on servers, which is called the Consolidated Desktop Solution. Rather than use hypervisors from VMware or Citrix Systems to create its virtual desktop, Unisys has created its own connection broker between thin clients and ES7000 servers, which are equipped to run Windows XP or Windows Vista instances right out of the box. You don't have to buy any extra stuff--just use the enterprise licenses to Windows XP or Vista that you already own and move them onto ES7000s. The terminals in the solution, which Unisys tweaks with a BIOS update so the connection broker can talk to the clients from the ES7000s, run Microsoft's Windows CE operating system. The solution is based on Microsoft's Virtual Server hypervisor today and will eventually support the new Hyper-V hypervisor for Windows Server 2008. The setup uses Microsoft's Systems Center and its Virtual Machine Manager extensions to manage the XP and Vista instances.

The important thing for an end user is that when they sit down, they experience what seems like a normal XP or Vista PC, even though it is running on the server. And according to Mark Feverston, general manager for collaboration and accessibility solutions at Unisys, IT managers and bean counters will like the virtual PC that Unisys has cooked up with its servers because on 1,000 devices it is about a quarter less expensive than the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) setup being proposed by VMware and its server and thin client partners. Feverston also says that Unisys can get more virtual machines per server core than the competition, and that some large banks and retailers are already putting the Unisys virtual desktops through the paces.

Another solution just announced by Unisys, called the Consolidated Solution for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, does just what the name suggests: virtualizes Exchange Server email and groupware servers running atop Windows and plunks them down on ES7000 or other servers of a customer's choosing. Virtualizing Exchange Server has been somewhat problematic, but hypervisors are getting better and servers are getting more processor cores, more memory, and operating systems that understand virtualization. According to Feverston, one early adopter of this service had a mix of two-socket and four-socket servers running Exchange Server 2003 for its end users, a total of 50 machines. In upgrading to Exchange Server 2007, the company figured it would need at least 70 servers just to support the same number of mailboxes running. By virtualizing and consolidating on big ES7000 SMP servers, the customer was able to set up two geographically separated and clustered (for failover) Exchange Servers, each virtualized and running two mailbox instances, and giving the organization enough processing capacity to double the number of mailboxes. The ES7000s each had 24 dual-core Xeon processors, so this was a massive consolidation in processor cores and server footprints. The customer also had enough spare capacity to add SharePoint collaboration services to the mix without any additional hardware.

Finally, Unisys also announced a storage virtualization service under the RTI umbrella, which basically goes into a company and architects the way to get a single, virtualized storage pool available for all the servers in the data center and remote offices of the company. This service is vendor and storage array neutral--Unisys will work with whatever gear is in the shop and help customers sort it out, and it does include and out-of-band Invista appliance from EMC to virtualize storage arrays.

As is the case for most services sold in the IT sector, none of these services or solutions announced by Unisys come with a price tag. Some day, an intrepid service supplier is going to be bold and just publish a price list for every service. If I were benevolent dictator of the universe, this would be compelled by all vendors of all products as a matter of law.

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