Medhurst IT Help Specialist School Save £23,000 with Innovative Virtualised Environment

Southampton, United Kingdom, April 04, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Medhurst IT, premier UK communication and business IT support providers, have helped a specialist mathematics school based in Fareham to save £23,000 by implementing effective ICT services into its existing learning environment and structure.

An elite Microsoft Gold Certified Partner that offers IT support in Southampton and surrounding regions, the Neville Lovett Community School in Hampshire contacted Medhurst IT to enquire if they could help to install and implement a powerful and effective Hyper-V Virtualisation system into their structure, yet help to save on costs for the benefits of the pupils. IT manager for Neville Lovett, Richard Markey, realised that the cost of powering and cooling existing servers as well as replacing them and managing them was proving too costly, and immediately looked for a way to reduce operating costs for the school.

Convinced of the benefits of Virtualisation, Mr. Markey contacted Medhurst IT to see if they could utilise their business IT support and services to see if the existing Windows Server 2008 R2 school network could take advantage of Hyper-V Virtualisation technology. Medhurst IT were only too happy to help install a virtualised environment; Mr. Markey realising that the school could save considerable funds by employing licensing alone. Medhurst IT showed Mr. Markey the benefits of Hyper-V Virtualisation technology in their unique innovation centre and assisted in implementing the system in the school with their business IT support and services.

The benefits have already been seen and all servers can now be managed through one monitor, reducing user downtime and helping to restore a student’s work within approximately fifteen minutes. Lower running costs mean that the school will save around £1,000 per year on power and cooling, and an estimated £23,000 over three years by not having to replace servers. Maintenance will be low and basic administration will be faster, allowing greater benefits for both pupils and teachers alike.

“Neville Lovett is already on a Microsoft School Agreement. I discovered that our terms for Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter mean we can run up to 16 Hyper-V hosts and unlimited virtual machines without incurring extra licensing costs,” comments Richard Markey of Neville Lovett. “If I’d opted for this solution earlier I could have saved money by downloading the Hyper-V hypervisor from the Microsoft Web site for no extra cost. When we installed VMware we had to pay an upfront fee for the software. With Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 ― part of the System Center suite ― my team can manage all servers from a single monitor, which means we can prevent many of the problems that cause user downtime. For example, we can back up and restore a student’s work in around 15 minutes!”

To find out more about Medhurst IT and the business IT support options they can offer, visit their website at http://www.medhurst-it.com/.

Offering business and commercial IT support to Hampshire, Southampton, Manchester, Chester and Liverpool, Medhurst are one of the UK’s leading provider of outsourced IT and communication solutions. Cost-effective, they are market leaders in the IT sector and are a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, a VMware enterprise partner, a Cisco Systems SMB select partner and are certified Microsoft small business specialists. Experts in implementing Microsoft technologies for their customers, Medhurst IT can also offer communication and internet services such as dedicated servers, virtual servers and colocation services for clients.

###