TECHNOLOGY SERVICE NEWS

QUARTERLY REPORT July 2005, Vol. 2, Issue 3 ©2005

Pharmaceutical Company Goes Virtual NSI Creates Virtual Infrastructure for Alexion NSI has completed installation of a virtual IT infrastructure for Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. of Cheshire, Connecticut. The biopharmaceutical company sought a virtual infrastructure as a base to support future IT growth. To execute its plan, Alexion choose NSI to implement an IBM Blade Center along with VMware ESX server 2.5 with Virtual Center and VMotion. NSI is an IBM Premier Business Partner and a VMware Authorized Consulting Partner. “Alexion was looking to lower hardware acquisition and maintenance costs for upcoming server roll-outs, and increase operational efficiency of their existing servers,” said Ed Garcia, NSI VP Service. “With this combination of the IBM Blade Center and VMware virtualization software Alexion now has the growth potential of approximately 90-100 virtual servers within an 8u footprint.” During a three-week period NSI installed the hardware and software in a test and production environment to verify it would perform as expected. After the test verification it was dismantled and installed into the production environment. The final installation was documented thoroughly to meet strict FDA guidelines for the Pharmaceutical industry. “Deploying this solution has made it possible for Alexion to avoid buying unnecessary servers and allowed the company to not only realize substantial savings, but also to better manage their growth,” Garcia said.