A developer of advanced label and packaging materials for consumer products has eliminated "server sprawl" in its corporate data center with SWsoft Virtuozzo operating system virtualization software.

On typical a day, AET Films runs approximately 45 Virtuozzo virtual environments on three IBM blade servers with dual-core, 2GHz processors and 8GB of memory. All are running Windows and are connected to a storage area network.

AET Films, which makes oriented polypropylene (OPP) films used for labels and packaging on thousands of consumer products, runs applications in Virtuozzo virtual environments including SQL Server, Web servers, as well as custom-made applications used by its technical team to increase productivity and provide customer service.

The company's Terre Haute, Indiana, manufacturing plant is one of the largest OPP production facilities and home to the company's corporate data center. Many creative people work at the facility and often write custom software applications as specific needs arise. As a result, the number of individual computers and servers around the facility grew to the point where the IT department was charged with getting things back under control.

According to Chris Stucker, manager of systems, network and services for AET, virtualization with SWsoft Virtuozzo was a natural choice to solve the issue.

After looking at various virtualization technologies, Stucker chose Virtuozzo for a variety of reasons.

"We were impressed with the number of virtual environments we could create on a single physical machine," continued Stucker. "We had 25 or more Virtuozzo virtual environments running on a server and the applications were extremely responsive. Now that we're in production, Virtuozzo's high-density capabilities, combined with great management tools, reduced power and cooling needs and excellent up-front pricing leads to a very cost-effective way to streamline the data center and reduce complexity throughout the IT organization."

All virtual environments are run by a single administrator, who also handles Windows administration – another way Virtuozzo reduces costs through effective management.

SWsoft Virtuozzo dynamically partitions a single Windows or Linux operating system instance into highly efficient and scalable virtual environments. Virtuozzo includes patented technology that enables density of up to hundreds of virtual environments per physical server.