Suncor future bright with app virtualization

It used to be a challenge for Suncor Energy Inc. to maintain a safe and secure operating platform across its 4,000 PC desktops in Canada and the U.S.

“”Every time a patch came up to imple-ment, testing was an onerous task,”” said Doug Pelton, an IT project manager at the Calgary-based energy company.

But a solution provider has made things brighter. Charon Systems Inc., a division of Bell Canada, is in the process of installing Softricity Inc.’s SoftGrid application virtualization platform at Suncor’s four locations here and in the U.S. The software will be used to deploy and manage the energy company’s 900 applications.

“”We’re not talking about a mom and pop-type of store that’s using Quickbooks to do their accounting,”” said David Fung, president of Charon Systems, in describing the kinds of companies needing SoftGrid’s power.

“”We’re talking about organizations that have multiple facets of business units.””

Automate rollout

Suncor, which has been a Charon customer for four years, considered Softricity’s product to help it automate the rollout of Microsoft Windows XP and Office 2003 across its systems.

SoftGrid takes applications and turns them into files that can be treated and replicated like data, making them easier to deploy and manage.

Time to deploy applications on desktops and servers is reduced from 40 to four hours, according to Softricity.

Benefits include reduced WAN traffic and the ability for Suncor’s IT department to update applications for the entire organization with one change to its central SoftGrid server.

Zero-touch computing

“”When you update an application in a traditional client-server environment, not only do you need to update a server, you need to update a client,”” Fung said. “”When you have server-based computing, you update a server and everybody’s updated.””

Similarly, application virtualization is what’s needed to make utility computing viable, said Anders Bergsma, enterprise account manager at Charon. “”You can deliver an application anywhere across the network without it actually having to be installed on whatever device it’s going to.””

The firm also purchased Altiris’ software delivery toolsfrom GE Capital for applications that can’t run in a virtualized state — which accounts for between five to 10 per cent of Suncor’s applications. In this instance, Altiris pushes the image down to the workstation in “”fat mode,”” explained Pelton.

At press time, 296 desktops had been re-imaged and 150 of the 900 applications were complete. Suncor commenced a full rollout in late September and expects to be about 95 per cent complete by mid-December.

Once the project is completed, Pelton said Suncor will have the management tools in place to allow it to remotely manage its desktops and 40 servers across the organization.

Cost cut by one-third

Pelton estimates this project will cost one-third of what it would have had Suncor used fat, manual installations without the help of Altiris and SoftGrid.

“”We think that manual installation would cost in the neighbourhood of $18 to $22 million for a situation our size,”” said Pelton. “”We believe we’re doing it for six-and-a-half (million).””

While Suncor has acquired additional Windows 2000 servers since beginning the implementation, Pelton said the biggest expense is the time it takes to get apps certified and loaded.

Pelton expects to save an additional $1.5 million in manpower. He also is anticipating savings three or four years down the road when adding new software as the tools and know-how will already be in place.

“”We’re well positioned for the future,”” said Pelton.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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