New York -- Gannett Media Technologies International (GMTI), an Application Service Provider, has built its new hosting environment on standards-based hardware from Dell and server virtualization software from VMware, recently acquired by EMC.

GMTI offers Internet hosting solutions to the printing and publishing industry. The company selected Dell as the primary provider of server and storage systems to build a flexible and scalable Internet hosting infrastructure.

Running Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems, GMTI has installed 90 Dell PowerEdge servers to support its hosting operations. To help reduce cost and consolidate the number of servers from 40 to four running its back-end applications, the company has installed VMware ESX Server virtualization software on Dell PowerEdge 6650 servers.

This software allows users to create multiple "virtual machines" on a single physical server, each of which is then able to run a separate operating system and application. The servers are connected to a Dell/EMC storage area network (SAN) providing 30 TB of storage capacity to enable VMWare VMotion capability, which can dynamically move applications to different physical servers based on business needs.

"Normally we would require a dedicated machine for each of our IT applications, which can be an expensive and difficult environment to manage," said Chris Ruffieux, vice president of technology, GMTI. "With VMware ESX Server virtualization software, we can run 40 virtual machines on just four Dell servers and add on as our business needs grow in the most cost effective way."