Problem: IT at Work Liberty Wines Improves Business Continuity with Virtualization
Recipient of multiple international wine awards-including the International Wine Challenge On Trade Supplier of the Year for two years running-Liberty Wines is one of the United Kingdom's foremost wine importers and distributors. Liberty Wines supplies to restaurants, supermarkets, and independent retailers from its headquarters in central London. IT Problems and Business Needs As the business expanded, the existing servers did not have the capacity to handle increased data volumes, and maintenance of the system put a strain on the IT team of two employees. Existing systems were slow and couldn't provide the responsiveness employees expected. Liberty Wines needed to speed up business processes to meet the needs of customers in the fast-paced world of fine dining. To provide the service their customers expect, employees at Liberty Wines need quick and easy access to customer, order, and stock information. In the past, the company relied on 10 physical servers for apps and services, such as order processing, reporting, and email. Virtualized Solution Liberty Wines deployed a virtualized server solution incorporating Windows Server 2008 R2. The 10 servers were replaced with three physical servers, running 10 virtual servers. An additional server is used as part of a backup system, further improving resilience and stability. By reducing the number of physical servers from 10 to 4, power use and air conditioning costs were cut by 60 percent. Not only is the bottom line improved, but the carbon footprint is reduced, which is good for the environment. The new IT infrastructure cut hardware replacement costs by £45,000 (US$69,500) while enhancing stability with the backup system. Apps run faster, so employees can provide better customer service with improved productivity. When needed, virtual servers can be added quickly and easily to support business growth.
Questions: What business risks had Liberty Wines faced?
How does Liberty Wines' IT infrastructure impact its competitive advantage?
How did server virtualization benefit Liberty Wines and the environment?