Server virtualization management tools from Veeam Software have become an integral part of the IT infrastructure in the Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD). Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam Business View and Veeam Monitor enable the district’s IT team to protect, manage and monitor mission-critical servers according to business priorities, empowering them to measure performance and reallocate resources to support the needs of the district.

“We consolidated 12 of our server racks down to three, with 160 virtual machines running on eight physical machines,” explained Joe Gremillion, network support specialist for the district. “Veeam Business View and Veeam Monitor enable us to see and manage our virtual servers by category, such as email servers, file servers and test servers. This gives us the kind of management overview we need to focus on core service values, including reliability, performance, flexibility and cost.”

In addition to Veeam Business View and Veeam Monitor, the IT team uses Veeam Backup & Replication, which ensures fast backup and recovery of the VMware environment. “Before we used Veeam Backup & Replication, it took 12 hours to back up one particular email server. Now that same process takes less than 20 minutes,” Gremillion said.

Veeam Monitor provides support for troubleshooting, issue resolution, trend reporting and capacity planning, which makes it possible for the team to proactively manage the VMware infrastructure. When integrated with Veeam Business View, Veeam Monitor provides a much easier way to manage and monitor the virtual infrastructure from a business or service level perspective.

“As more and more universities employ server virtualization, they find they need new strategies to manage virtual machines and safeguard their investment in the virtual infrastructure,” explained Doug Hazelman, Director of the Global Systems Engineer Group for Veeam. “Veeam Business View along with Veeam Monitor enables the IT team at DCCCD to group and manage virtual machines in a business-centric manner, which helps them prioritize resource allocation and meet both the technology and business needs of the district.”