Business resiliency

This Flash animation illustrates the “Resiliency” entry point for IBM virtualization. It uses a case study approach to show the business pains of a fictional business and how they address those challenges through IBM virtualization technology. The animation starts with the notion of “what is holding the company back” in terms of resiliency. Then it shows how virtualization helped fill the need.

Throughout the story, a Virtualization visual identifier will appear that alerts viewers that they can find out how IBM virtualization is solving the problem on the technical side. THIS IS SIGNIFIED BY A YELLOW HIGHLIGHT IN THE SCRIPT.

After they view the technical piece, they are taken back to the main narrative. While these technical pieces talk about what’s happening “under the covers”, they will not be so deeply technical that only programmers will understand them. They will give a basic overview of the technology that’s at work.

Fictional Company in this example: A Small, Regional Bank
Fictional Character: IT Manager

We see the outside of a small regional bank.

IT MANAGER
Innovation isn’t a buzzword for us, it’s a survival tool.

Signs appear in the window of the bank with different innovative offers: Flexible Checking, No Fee ATMs, online banking, Small Business Interest Checking, Saving Strategy Seminars, etc…

IT MANAGER
As a regional bank, we always look for ways to give our customers special attention, while being as reliable as the big guys.

Show images of people banking at ATMs and online at home.

IT MANAGER
But our IT budget doesn’t allow for an underground bunker full of spare servers and storage.

Show letters and emails that apologize to customers for a recent unscheduled outage.

IT MANAGER
So in the past whenever we had an outage, we had to let everyone know whether they were affected or not.

Notices appear on a computer screen on the Bank’s main website that say the system will be down for scheduled maintenance during certain hours. People look annoyed.

IT MANAGER
And we had to warn customers of any disruptions due to scheduled maintenance. Nobody was happy.

See people looking at the letters and email – they look annoyed.

IT MANAGER
It was time to get innovative with our IT.

We are outside the bank branch as the virtualization visual identifier (V visual id) appears – it sweeps over the bank, transforming the look of it. The logo then appears to let viewers know they can get more technical information about application availability (1) below.

IT MANAGER
Now, with IBM virtualization technology, our applications are can stay up and running while we add capacity or perform routine maintenance.

We see people banking in a branch location, at an ATM and at a computer screen from home – all have access to their accounts.

IT MANAGER
We can also swap out enabled subsystems, storage devices, and servers without our customers ever having to know about it.

Close ups of banking customers looking happy.

IT MANAGER
Because they continue to get the same great service.

Image of a bank office environment. The Virtualization visual identifier moves through the scene as text appears: “Maintain availability during Data Migrations” more technical information about data migration (2) below.

IT MANAGER
IBM Virtualization solutions also helps us streamline data migrations…

Image of a modest IT environment. The Virtualization visual identifier moves through the scene as the words “Quick, Easy Data Migration” appear.

IT MANAGER
…so it’s easy to upgrade our storage systems while we maintain availability.

Image of an impending storm. The virtualization visual identifier flies through the scene and the words, “Lower Cost for Disaster Recovery” appear. More technical information about lower cost disaster recovery (3) below.

IT MANAGER
And IBM Virtualization can help us lower the cost and complexity of disaster recovery.

We see a large skyscraper banking headquarters. The Virtualization visual identifier flies through the scene transforming it into the small bank branch we saw at the beginning.

IT MANAGER
Now we have availability and recovery solutions that are similar to the big guys – without breaking the bank.

Signs appear in the windows of the bank branch that read, “Great Availability”, “Lower Costs” and “Satisfied Customers”.

IT MANAGER
Great availability, lower costs and satisfied customers.

The Virtualization visual identifier appears on the screen by the bank.

IT MANAGER
That’s what I’d call innovation.

More Information 1 – Application Availability
We start with a representation of an IT data center. A computer screen on the left side of the frame runs a banking application. A transaction data stream flows from the computer to a BladeCenter server in a rack (it is labeled “Web Server”). The data then flows from the BladeCenter to an IBM System p.

The p and BladeCenter are also connected to storage devices which are part of the transaction flow. This transaction loop flows back in a circle through the BladeCenter back to the computer with the banking application.

The words, “IBM Systems with Virtualization” appear on the screen next to the Virtualization visual identifier. Benefit text appears that reads: “Application Availability Improved During Server/Storage Maintenance & Upgrades”

IT MANAGER
IBM Systems with Virtualization and IBM SAN Volume Controller are designed to help us perform maintenance and upgrades to servers and storage while our applications remain available for our customers.

The virtualization visual identifier moves down and touches both the BladeCenter and the System p. “Virtual” rectangles above the BladeCenter and the storage and colored rectangles appear on top of the System p that represent LPARs. One of these rectangles is labeled “Core Banking Application”.

As the transactions stream flows through the environment (servers and storage; circular flow) the LPAR on the mainframe running the core banking application expands to handle peak volume.

At the same time, we see the rectangle above the storage expand and a new storage controller coming on line to represent added capacity.

IT MANAGER
By creating virtual images of our servers and storage, we have the ability to migrate them from one physical system to another or dynamically add capacity while maintaining application availability.

Focusing on the BladeCenter, we see a virtual server image move up from the first blade in the chassis up to the virtualization rectangle above it. The server image then goes from the rectangle to the fifth blade in the chassis. The first physical blade is then removed from the chassis (in animation) and replaced with a new blade.

The virtual server image moves up from the fifth chassis into the rectangle and down into the new first blade in the chassis. The overall transaction flow continues without interruption.

IT MANAGER
This allows us to move an image off of one physical server, perform scheduled maintenance or swap the server out completely, and then move the image back.

Show the transaction flow continuing without any problem. Text appears: “PERFORM SCHEDULED MAINTENANCE WITHOUT INTERRUPTION”.

IT MANAGER
Since the migration doesn’t affect end-user access to the applications, we can perform scheduled maintenance and upgrades without bothering our customers.

More Information 2: DATA MIGRATION
We start with a representation of an IT data center. In it, we see different storage devices. There is a mix of different types of hardware – some IBM and some “white box”. We see a representation of an IBM System p above the grouping of storage. A computer screen running a banking application is on the left side of the frame – a data stream runs from it to the System p to the storage and back.

The words, “IBM SAN VOLUME CONTROLLER” appear on the screen next to each of them is the Virtualization visual identifier.

IT MANAGER
IBM solutions, like SAN Volume Controller, helps us easily manage our storage infrastructure across all major storage brands.

The Virtualization visual identifier streaks across the screen creating a virtual layer between the System p and the storage. A data stream comes down from the System p and connects with the virtualization layer.

IT MANAGER
Instead of connecting to a specific storage unit, application servers communicate with a virtual storage layer.

Show data being moved off of one white box storage device over to an IBM storage unit – data moves up from the white box server to the virtualization layer, and then come down from the virtualization layer to the IBM storage device. The transaction flow is uninterrupted.

IT MANAGER
Its design helps us easily migrate data from one storage unit to another while applications still have access to the information.

Show the white box storage unit being replaced by a new IBM storage device. Data is transferred back over to that new unit.

IT MANAGER
Now we can uprgrade our physical storage without interruption.

The storage system is replaced with a tiered storage environment: a high end Enterprise Storage Device on one end (like the DS8000), then midrange storage devices in the middle and tape storage on the other end. We see data flow from the application to the Enterprise Storage, then a thinner stream of data flows to the midrange, and a thinner stream goes from the midrange to tape.

IT MANAGER
IBM Virtualization Solutions also helps us easily implement a tiered storage infrastructure to support our information lifecycle management strategy.

Another computer screen appears that is running TotalStorage Productivity Center. We see how both virtual and physical storage devices are controlled.

IT MANAGER
SAN Volume Controller, working with IBM TotalStorage Productivity Center helps give us the ability to manage both our physical and virtual storage assets together, for control over our storage infrastructure.

More Information 3: Lower Cost Disaster Recovery
We start with a representation of an IT data center. In it, we see different servers and storage devices – some IBM and some “white box”. The Virtualization visual identifier appears next to the words “Lower Cost and complexity for Disaster Recovery”

IT MANAGER
IBM Virtualization technologies can help us lower the cost and complexity of disaster recovery.

The screen splits in two – showing an identical group of servers and storage. It is labeled “Backup Site”. The virtualization visual identifier flies down to the backup site side and transforms it into a smaller group of lower cost storage units. We see server images travel from the primary site to the backup site. Capacity meters appear next to each of the servers and storage at the backup site. As the images from the primary site move to the backup hardware, we see that the capacity for these servers is not completely used up by the images.

IT MANAGER
With IBM Virtualization Solutions, images of many physical servers at the primary site can be recovered on fewer virtualized servers.

The primary site hardware becomes a dark silhouette to connote that it has gone offline. The computer console goes dark for a moment.

The virtualization visual identifier flies through and connects the computer console to the backup site. The capacity meters at the backup site fill up almost completely – due to transaction volume increase. The banking application re-appears on the console.

IT MANAGER
So instead of maintaining an expensive, identical IT environment, with virtualization we can mirror our primary site using lower cost servers and storage for a simplified, affordable backup solution. And if we do experience an outage we can quickly failover to the virtualized infrastructure at the backup location.

We see more capacity turn on for the backup site servers – which allows all the server meters to increase. The used capacity goes up over the original 100%, but thanks to Capacity On Demand, there is enough room for the new workload. Text reads, “IBM Capacity On Demand”

VOICE OVER
If we need additional capacity during recovery or recovery testing, IBM Capacity On Demand can help us deal with spikes in server usage.

The Virtualization visual identifier reappears next to the words, “IBM Storage Virtualization” – the virtualization visual identifier flies down and creates a link between the primary and backup site hardware. Text appears that reads, “Simplified Data Replication”, “Reduce Recovery Time”

IT MANAGER
IBM SAN Volume Controller is designed to replicate data to the backup site in a consistent, common way regardless of the number of different Storage devices we have. This simplification can also help us reduce recovery time.

The virtualization visual identifier appears next to the words, “Simple, Low Cost Disaster Recovery”

IT MANAGER
IBM Virtualization Solutions help give us an effective disaster recovery solution at a cost we can afford.