Virtualisation refresh

Project overview

Virtual machines (VMs) use software to mimic the hardware and operating system of a physical computer to allow many operating systems and applications to run on a single device. Using virtual machines is much more efficient in terms of energy, management and cost when compared to using separate hardware for each server. 

At York, we use virtual machines in our data centres to provide staff and students with access to specialised software or operating systems which would otherwise require a dedicated computer. We run around 1200 VMs that cover critical services such as door access control and building management, finance and HR systems.

At the scale at which the University operates, with many applications connecting to users and devices on campus, on-premises server hosting remains more cost-effective than using cloud services, although we do utilise cloud services where they deliver particular benefits.

The physical servers hosting our virtual machines are reaching end of life and we've achieved a major cost saving by using this need for a hardware refresh, to also switch to a different vendor for the VM hosting platform.

After the migration, we expect applications and services hosting on our VMs to run faster than before but there will be no change to the way they operate.

When?

All 1200 virtual machines will be migrated to the new platform by the end of April 2025. 

Virtual machines will be migrated to the new platform in two phases:

• Gold tier: approximately 300 virtual machines hosting critical services such as those providing student information and teaching services, building access control and finance systems were migrated before the end of 2024. This tier is designed to host critical services and can survive the failure of either one of our two on-campus data centres. This is our older hardware, so has to be migrated first.
• Silver tier: approximately 900 virtual machines will be migrated by the end of April 2025. This tier includes the majority of our services, such as web servers, file servers, application servers for university wide and departmental applications. It also hosts our test and development environments for many systems.

How will this affect me?

As we move virtual machines to our new platform, we have to briefly power off each server to avoid any data corruption meaning there will be unavoidable disruption of up to ten minutes per machine. IT Services staff will be monitoring services throughout and completing pre and post migration checks.

If you operate a service which is hosted on a VM that is scheduled for migration, you’ll receive specific communications with details about expected timings.

Why?

The servers that host our virtual machines are reaching end of life and will soon become unsupported. Separately, our existing vendor for the VM software platform considerably increased their annual fees during 2024, while also reducing their level of support.

The need to refresh both hardware and software came at an opportune time, enabling us to switch to a different vendor offering a much more cost-effective solution. This solution also includes high-quality support, which is essential for teaching, research, and everyday life on campus.

Benefits

• We’re able to continue to offer a reliable and secure VM hosting service, critical to keeping University operations working smoothly.
• Better performance, better security and better support from the VM platform vendor.
• A significant cost saving to the University.