NEWS : Westcoast Solutions Lab is now open for business!

Westcoast is proud to announce the new...



The Westcoast Solutions Lab is a multi-vendor, fully functional demo facility that you and your customers can take advantage of to maximise your business. The Lab will always showcase the most up to date products and technologies from a range of manufacturers to keep you ahead of the competition.

The Solutions Lab has an HP Rack system fully loaded with the latest technologies from HP, including Generation 7 BL460c blades and DL380 rack servers, HP 5400zl and A5800 core switches, P4000 SAN storage running Virtual SAN appliance software as well as the full suite of HP management tools and Microsoft software.

Westcoast Solutions Lab

The lab also benefits from multiple tech pods which are available to demonstrate the latest solution combinations from HP, Microsoft and other key vendors, to help you position the benefits to your customers.

• The live environment is fully Microsoft Lync enabled so demonstrates the software and technology using various Lync optimised end points.

• The Solutions Lab staff can show you and your customers Virtualisation and Management demonstrations using Microsoft Hyper-V and System Centre on an HP Blade Systems platform.

• The facility uses the latest AV technologies to ensure presentations and training are of the highest visual standard.

• The space can be re branded to suit the audience and the event using the visual display capabilities on site.

Westcoast Solutions Lab

Located in Milton Keynes and with easy access from the M1 motorway the Westcoast Solutions Lab is available for many different types of events free of charge to our resellers including;

• Reseller and end user events
• Vendor days
• Conferences
• Focus groups
• Breakfast meetings
• Training sessions

We would encourage you to please visit the Lab on our open days on the 12-14th October to see what the lab can offer you and your customers. There will be 3 identical sessions at the below times on these days.

• 10am - 12pm
• 1pm - 3pm
• 3.30pm - 5.30pm

Plus! Join us on one of these open days and get entered  into a draw for 3 chances to £200 cash back on your next servers, storage or networking order! 
One must be given away each day!

Please click the image above to book the lab

We hope that you can make use of this fantastic new facility, so please In the meantime if you need anymore information then please do not hesitate to contact us.

If you wish to book the lab then please either click the Calendar image (above) or go to this link

Regards

Technical ISS Solutions Team

Westcoast Smart Bid website now extended to HP Networking..

The new HP Networking section of the popular Westcoast SmartBid website has been now been launched where you can obtain special pricing on specific HP Networking product part numbers.

The site allows you to manage your bids and get a decision within 4 business hours.

Visit the site today and log in with your Westcoast log in details www.westcoast.co.uk/smartbid

If you have a Networking solution you wish to implement or would like help or more details on HP's range of networking solutions, then please do not hesitate to contact the Solutions team.

Regards

Technical ISS Solutions Team

Westcoast at Convergence Summit South (4-5th October 2011)

With the worldwide IT and Infrastructure changing rapidly over the last 3 or 4 years as organisations of all sizes, commercial and public sector look at ways to reduce costs, increase ROI on investments and maximise their current infrastructure Westcoast have reacted to this challenge.

Westcoast have partnered with Microsoft, HP and Aastra to bring you a complete Unified Communications Solution.

Combining technologies from these three vendors will allow you and your customers to adapt to evolving business needs with a secure communications platform that spans across all the different ways people communicate, including telephone, e-mail, voice mail and instant messaging. Westcoast is also a leading supplier of IT Infrastructure products to the computer reseller channel.

Click here to arrange a meeting with us.

For more details on the Convergence Summit South event please go to http://www.convergencesummit.co.uk

Regards

Technical ISS Solutions Team

September 2011 - HP Server and Storage offers.

In order for you to have your own copy of this months offers, We can now offer them in a easy downloadable PDF for you.

Please click the image above to open the PDF.

Regards

Technical ISS Solutions Team

HELP : VMware vSphere 5 licensing Explained

Since the lauch of HP VMware Sphere 5 there have been a number of questions on how it is licenced as there is a little confusion from people moving over from vSphere 4.

In vSphere 5 the licence you use (Standard, Enterprise or Enterprise plus) is partly determined by how much vRAM the virtual machines have been allocated.

vRAM is new in Version 5, Unlike in vSphere 4 where the core and physical RAM entitlements are tied to a single server and cannot be shared among multiple hosts, the vRAM entitlements of vSphere 5 licenses are pooled, aggregated, across all vSphere servers managed by vCenter Server.

So what is a vRAM?
When a virtual machine is created, it is configured with a certain amount of memory available to the virtual machine, this is called vRAM.

What are the new Licences?
 The licences are split up into 3 different versions...

• Standard 1 Processor licence allow for a maximum of 32GB/entitlement
• Enterprise 1 Processor licence allow a maximum of 64GB /entitlement
• Enterprise plus 1 Processor licence allow a maximum of 96GB/entitlement

So how do I licence Servers and vRAM?
The easiest way to explain it is to provide an example.

If you were to use two DL380 G7 servers each with two 6 core processors (4 processors in total), 128GB of physical RAM and you wanted to use vSphere Enterprise edition, each physical CPU would require a license. To correctly licence vShpere you would need to purchase a minimum of four vSphere 5 Enterprise licenses (one for each processor). Now as each Enterprise license provides a vRAM entitlement of 64GB this creates a vRAM pool of 256GB.

Next, you would need to create the virtual machines.

In this example lets say you want to create 50 virtual machines each having 4GB of vRAM in each, and planned to deploy them across the two DL380 G7 servers, this would only take up 200GB of your 256GB entitlement. As both of the DL380 servers are connected to the same vCenter Server and are running the same VMware vSphere edition This vRAM pool also allows DRS and VMware vMotion to move the virtual machines between any of the CPUs without needing any additional licenses.

Even if all 50 virtual machines were running on a single CPU, no additional vRAM capacity would be required, because the pooled vRAM entitlement would not be exceeded.

If you increased the memory in the DL380 servers to beyond the vRAM entitlement, you would need to purchase additional processor licences (of the same type) for the additional physical memory you installed in the servers to be used.

For instance If you increased the memory in the servers from 128GB to 192GB each (384GB in total) but only had the 4 Enterprise licences as shown above, you would only ever see an entitlement of 256GB of that 384GB. You would therefore need to purchase another 2 enterprise licences to allow the additional memory in the servers to be used.

So what do the different versions give me?

Below is a table showing what features are with each edition of vSphere 5

I Hope that has helped with any questions around licencing vSphere 5.
If you have any questions please post them below and i will be happy to help or please contact us.

Regards

Technical ISS Solutions Team