XenServer & The City, London LinkedIn Group

There is now a LinkedIn group for those end users running or evaluating Citrix XenServer in the City Of London.

New members shall need to be approved before being able to post (to keep the SPAM out) but otherwise the group is open to members. Feel free to invite your colleagues and contacts. Discussions can only be read by other members of the group. This group operated for the benefit of end users, sorry vendors/resellers.

Running IT operations in one of the worlds largest financial centers puts extreme pressure on infrastructure managers:

• Data center space is in short supply, driving up prices and driving out colocation to make way for fully managed hosting customers. Hosting offers higher margins and reduced churn rates to service providers, but does not suit everyone.

• Power demand continues to outstrip supply as it has done for years. Although there is some hope this will improve after 2012. Lack of power in London has been a recurring problem!

• Cooling. Due to the Urban Heat Island effect, central London can be up to 10 degrees warmer than the surrounding area. This places further strain on cooling plant and equipment. We have just entered what is traditionally the warmest month.

These factors have driven city sysadmins to ever more dense virtualisation and higher levels of utilisation. However, maintaining mission critical systems under such conditions is a challenge.

The XenServer City Of London Group activities outside LinkedIn will likely include occasional informal get-togethers (yes, that means drinks), briefing sessions, peer talks, and perhaps even collaborative projects. The group will also provide leverage for pushing bug fixes and feature requests back into Citrix Engineering through our longstanding relationship with the development teams.

As with any user forum, you get out what you put in.
In other words "ask not what this group can do for you, but what you can do for this group".