• Virtualization
• How to License a Virtual Infrastructure

About Us

We promote ourselves as The Virtual IT Department. We provide IT Support for clients who cannot or do not want to fund an internal IT department. We also provide consultancy support and backup to clients own internal IT departments.

Trade Bodies / Associations

VMware Registered Partner, Netgear Partner (ReadyNAS), Microsoft Partner (including Licensing Sales/Advice), Symantec Partner, Tobit TAR, Funkwerk reseller, McAfee Partner, Acronis Registered Partner

Specialist Services

IT Infrastructure specialists. Able to review current infrastrure and propose improvements where appropriate including server OS, backup systems, email systems, remote access, virtualisation, storage, LAN, firewalls.

We help manage both Free and SnS based VMware environments

A new ESXi (the host server operating system) installation has a 60 trial period with all features enabled. This allows a business to see how virtualization works for them and what advantages it offers (and any disadvantages it may introduce). If a License is not purchased and applied to an ESXi host server within 60 days that ESXi installation will be automatically downgraded (limited) to ESXi Free. ESXi is sufficient for some businesses but the downgraded features may make operations difficult, e.g. backup of the VM (Virtual Machine) - this is different to a Windows backup. There are various Licenses available for small businesses. The choice depends on what features you want, e.g. VM availability, VM mobility (move to lower utilised hardware), Storage mobility (move where the VM data is stored). But then your budget will ultimately determine which features you can afford.
Existing physical computers (Servers or Desktops) can be virtualized through a P2V (Physical to Virtual) process. This process is so much easier if run whilst the physical server is still running. But, having said that, we have been able to recover sufficient data from failed servers to enable the business to continue running after a few days.

It is easy to mess up licensing of Microsoft Products

Often new hardware is capable of running more than one Server thus reducing the energy and hard ware support costs. One thing to be very aware of is licensing of Microsoft Windows Servers. If re-using the old hardware then the OEM license still may be valid but if moving to new hardware then OEM licenses from the old hardware cannot be used. If only one or two servers are to be run on the hardware then Windows Server Standard will often suffice. Microsoft Volume (or Open) licenses can often turn out to be cheaper in the long run than Retail packages and the benefits of Software Advantage can make the extra cost worthwhile.

Trading Since

1996