Microsoft cloud/Welsh Rugby Union case study article/March 2011/Telegraph Special Report/by Sue Tabbitt

A winning conversion
The Welsh Rugby Union's private cloud platform means upping its game will only ever be a virtual challenge in IT terms, finds Sue Tabbitt

As the dust settles on the Six Nations, the Welsh Rugby Union can be proud of its IT performance at least. Just as its facilities at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and Centre of Excellence in the Vale of Glamorgan meet the highest international standards, so too does the IT infrastructure which make many of its value-added services possible.

Wherever state-of-the-art technology is seen to add real, tangible value, the WRU looks for a way to harness it, from IP TV to pitch-side content feeds.

Core IT systems are hosted in a 'private cloud' environment, enabling flexible, secure access to a broad range of content hosted at the Millennium Stadium, no matter where the users are. Thanks to a 'virtualised' IT infrastructure and dedicated broadband link (delivering data speeds of 100Mbps between the two main sites), the WRU can put its talent where it's needed most - and its content where it can be best protected.

The rugby analysis team, whose job is to pore over reams of game footage to determine where the national team's strategies and tactics can be improved, is based in the Vale of Glamorgan, yet follows the players around the world. On an event day, some 120GB of uncompressed game footage is captured for analysis purposes, content which is archived at the Centre of Excellence but which must be readily accessible.

Among the many drivers pointing the WRU towards adopting a cloud-style IT environment was a desire to maximise availability, while keeping resource consumption and costs under control.

The WRU didn't want to make the leap to a public cloud scenario, with someone else hosting its core IT systems externally, but felt the 'virtualised' approach to deploying and managing an IT infrastructure offered something important. Craig Phillips, group IT manager for the Welsh Rugby Union and the Millennium Stadium, explains: "We've got high availability; consolidated, cost-efficient systems; and can provision resources flexibly and quickly."

Switching on additional capacity means a simple software adjustment, taking days rather than weeks. Says Phillips, "Before, it cost £7,000-8,000 for new hardware; now it's a licence increase of around £1,000, and that's it. But we shouldn't need any more servers, as we're making better use of the capacity we have, grouping together services such as HR, payroll and finance on a single system." Meanwhile a networked storage system means content storage is streamlined and shared, and capacity can be increased as needed.

Once applications are hosted in the virtualised environment, WRU staff can access them securely from any location, via a virtual private network (VPN) using WiFi and the Internet. This includes email (Microsoft Exchange) and BlackBerry applications, which is empowering for staff who travel a lot - from development managers who take the game of rugby out to schools and local clubs across Wales, to elected directors.

The set-up has reduced the IT support burden, too. The WRU's IT team is just three people including Phillips, who look after 200 staff day to day. "We can manage events with just one person, instead of 2-3, and we can do a lot more remotely now," he notes.

This is also true for Certus IT, the WRU's IT provider in Cardiff, which supplied the new virtualised infrastructure and provides vital backup to the internal team. Thanks to the new platform (Microsoft's Hyper-V), the company can monitor systems and provide ad-hoc support remotely. "We no longer have to pay for engineers on site," Phillips says.

System availability and business continuity are a given, he adds. The WRU can back up its IT systems between the two sites every night, exploiting the virtualised infrastructure and the dedicated broadband link. The virtualised environment also ticks the WRU's 'green box', Phillips notes. "We're saving 70% of power usage in the server room after slimming down our hardware."

The next stage is to move the Millennium Stadium's ticketing systems into the private cloud environment, giving them additional resilience and allowing external access.

"I've been highly impressed with our virtualised IT environment," Phillips concludes. "It's yet another example of how we're moving with the times."