The Waddington Group, Inc. Implements VMware vSphere With Operations Management to Support Business Growth

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwired - Jul 14, 2014) - VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW) today announced that The Waddington Group, Inc. (TWG), a major global packaging manufacturer and marketer, has deployed VMware vSphere® with Operations Management™, to help it achieve increased IT agility and efficiency as the company expands through acquisition and organic growth. VMware vSphere with Operations Management combines the leading virtualization platform with insight to IT capacity and performance.

"The Waddington Group has grown quickly in recent years both organically and through acquisitions," said Paul Reed, director of IT at The Waddington Group, Inc. "As the company expands, IT requires a foundation that offers agility and efficiency to integrate disparate systems as well as deliver new systems and applications in short order. We deployed VMware vSphere with Operations Management to help us virtualize and automate our infrastructure and reimagine how we deliver IT services moving forward."

Flexible and Responsive IT Foundation Eases the Company's Expansion
TWG is a holding company for a number of businesses serving the disposable food service market in the U.S., Canada and Europe. The company is comprised of four divisions: WNA in the U.S., POLAR PAK in Canada, Waddington Europe, and Eco-Products of Boulder, Colo. A portfolio company of Olympus Partners, TWG is headquartered in Covington, Ky.

In the last three years, TWG has expanded through acquisitions in Canada and the U.S. With each acquisition, TWG's IT staff is counted on to integrate its backend systems with those of newly acquired companies within 30 days. To support its continuing growth and achieve increased efficiency, TWG has adopted server virtualization more broadly to help rationalize and eliminate duplicate hardware and software systems. Beyond reducing costs through hardware and software consolidation, TWG is also focused on lowering power and cooling consumption costs.

Following product evaluations, TWG's IT staff selected VMware vSphere with Operations Management in December 2013 to extend its virtualization initiatives. TWG completed its implementation in March 2014 with the help of MTM Technologies, Inc., a leading national provider of innovative information technology solutions and services. With VMware vSphere with Operations Management now in production, TWG has:

• Reduced the time spent integrating backend systems by more than 80 percent
• Increased consolidation ratio by 52 percent
• Increased data center efficiency by 34 percent
• Increased storage capacity utilization by 31 percent
• Increased memory utilization by 19 percent

Beyond achieving those capacity utilization, cost and time savings benefits in the near-term, TWG also expects to:

• Shorten infrastructure deployment and application development cycle times through increased automation
• Virtualize business critical applications including Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft SQL Server
• Realize higher application and infrastructure availability and performance through the use of VMware vSphere features such as Distributed Resource Scheduler and VMware vSphere vMotion
• Ease operations through environment monitoring and alerting with single dashboard view

Prior to 2014, The Waddington Group had virtualized its disaster recovery for its IFS ERP system with VMware solutions.

Additional Resources

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VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2013 revenues of $5.21 billion, VMware has more than 500,000 customers and 75,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

VMware, VMware vSphere, Distributed Resource Scheduler, vMotion and VMware vSphere with Operations Management are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. The use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.