Baerlocher embraces server virtualization to forestall $2 million upgrade

Smart use of new technology often has a profound impact. At Baerlocher USA, for example, server virtualization might very well keep the company in business -- while indefinitely postponing the need for a multimillion-dollar upgrade to an aged production system.

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To run its plastic-additives business, Baerlocher uses process-automation software dubbed Freelance from Swedish company ABB to help it crank out chemical additives -- the stuff that makes plastic shiny, heat resilient, hard or soft -- for seven production lines in its Cincinnati plant. The system operates 24/7/365, running on two Windows NT 4.0 servers, 10 workstations, eight controllers and hundreds of electronic components, says Oliver Fischer-Samano, IT director for the German company's NAFTA region, comprising the United States, Canada and Mexico. Downtime isn't an option, so only rudimentary backups are possible, given the always-on plant operation.

Here's the rub: The whole production environment is well past its prime -- and has been for years -- but corporate management hasn't approved the capital expenditure yet required to bring in a modern-age system. "Not only do we need to do a software upgrade, but also there's a huge chunk of hardware that needs to be replaced, and the electronics, and a lot of engineering. We're talking about seven-digit replacement costs, and nobody wants to bankroll that -- I've tried for the past three years," Fischer-Samano says.

Fischer-Samano, however, has come to realize that virtualization technology will obviate the need for all of this. Plus, it will let him embrace best practices he knows have been sorely missing but impossible to implement, given the current state of affairs. Baerlocher earns a 2007 Enterprise All-Star Award for exemplifying how virtualization can be used to solve IT's thorniest challenges.