AutoTrader.com Leverages Akorri BalancePoint to Fix and Predict Problems and Optimize Utilization in its Highly Virtualized Data Center

AutoTrader.com, created in 1997 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, is the Internet's leading auto classifieds marketplace and consumer information website. AutoTrader.com aggregates in a single location more than 3 million vehicle listings from 40,000 dealers and 250,000 private owners, which provide the largest selection of vehicles attracting more than 13 million qualified buyers each month. Through innovative merchandising products such as multiple photos and comprehensive search functionality, AutoTrader.com unites buyer and seller online - dramatically improving the way people research, locate and advertise vehicles. AutoTrader.com is a majority-owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises.

CHALLENGE: Virtual Machine Sprawl and No Visibility to Storage

AutoTrader.com’s IT environment consists of approximately 1800 servers. About 800 of those servers are Windows and VMware platforms. Windows 2003 is the company’s main platform currently at approximately 90%, and the remainder is Windows 2000. AutoTrader’s storage infrastructure is approximately 40 terabytes of NetApp storage presented on iSCSI and NFS.

AutoTrader is a heavy virtualization user. Their development, QA, and production applications reside on VMware where possible. When any new application is introduced at the company, whether from the business or the IT side of the organization, it is evaluated to see if it is a fit for VMware virtualization. Currently about 90% of new applications are candidates for virtualization and after evaluation most go from physical to virtual, cutting down on hardware, maintenance and data center costs.

Virtualization is transforming every part of data center operations management. While benefits such as more efficient utilization of IT infrastructure and staff, increased flexibility, faster response to business needs, and more flexible services through resource sharing can be realized, because virtualization breaks the relationships between physical server, network, and storage components, managing virtualization technologies requires a new approach.

One of the biggest challenges AutoTrader.com experienced in managing its virtual environment was virtual machine sprawl. As the company’s application owners realized how quickly they could scale and add servers, IT had to manage the process to ensure there was capacity to support these efforts.

Another issue AutoTrader.com had to address was gaining the ability to get visibility from the VMs down through to the storage to proactively identify performance bottlenecks before they became an issue.

SOLUTION: Akorri BalancePoint Provides End-to-End Insight and Control of Virtualized Infrastructure

“Akorri BalancePoint was the only solution we found in the market that provided a view across the entire virtualized infrastructure,” said Jason Cornell, manager of the Windows System Group at Autotrader.com. “We found many tools that looked at one specific level, whether it was the hosts, guests, or the storage, but nothing provided a cross domain view until we saw Akorri. Akorri’s BalancePoint was the first to pull everything together in a meaningful way.”

RESULTS: More Consolidation, ITIL Implementation

• Maximized performance without adding hardware. “ We can now stack on our hosts more VMware virtual machines so that we're able to consolidate more and deliver more to the business at a lower cost, because we're not adding hardware unnecessarily due to the inability to see into what we actually have,” said Cornell.
• Provided meaningful management reports for administrators up through to executive management reducing management tasks and avoiding problems
• Enabled cross-domain ITIL processes.  “In addition, we're a fast growing company, having gone from a start up ten years ago to a very large company now and a lot of the processes and procedures are now catching up,” said Cornell. “So we're looking into ITIL and determining where we can use those procedures and policies to help make our organization more efficient and Akorri’s BalancePoint is one of the tools that will help us do that.”