The largest underwriter of pollution liability insurance for marine vessels in the United States has undertaken a ‘green’ initiative that will create a smaller technology footprint.

The Firm, a provider of water pollution liability insurance for over 40,000 vessels operating in U.S. waters or traveling in international waters between U.S. ports, called on NITConnect to virtualize its entire network.

The project will require all current files and application servers be moved into a new virtual environment. Having the background and experience with this emerging green IT solution, NITConnect will manage this process.

Because no two environments are alike, NITConnect keeps in mind a well-considered virtualization project plan as its top priority before implementation.

Components of this plan typically include an ROI analysis template and methodology, verification for application compatibility with virtualized environments and a detailed inventory of applications and minimum hardware specifications. NITConnect will also take into account the firm power and cooling requirements when creating the proper virtualization plan.

Prior to implementation, NIT will unpack the server, setup hardware in the proper configuration, install the operating system and logical drives, update all service packs and patches, test HBA connectivity with Host servers, configure laptops, install applications and add to the existing domain.

As part of the implementation process, NITConnect will use EMC Vmware ESX Enterprise Server for the base of the architecture, replicate each physical server to the co-location center using DoubleTake, mirror each SAN using the Dell Equilogic Snap-Shot Manager and manage the automatic fail-over with the EMC Site Recovery Manager module of VMware.

All current physical servers will be converted to virtual servers using Ghost wherever possible. Once the new virtual environment is created, however, NITConnect, will work with each major software vendor for application support and to upgrade and move the current standalone servers into the new environment. The entire environment will be monitored and managed by EMC’s Virtual Center and Site Recovery Manager. In the event of a server or total site failure, the Site Recovery Manager will present the application to the users automatically.