Virtualization Services

FY10 Strategic Initiative #5

Virtualization Services In Scope
Introduce new services utilizing virtualization
including:

Applications

VMware pilot program

Storage
 VMware product overview

VMware is one of several server
virtualization products

VMware vSphere 4.0 Enterprise Edition

High Availability

Thin provisioning

VC Agent

Update Manager

VMSafe

Data Recovery

Hot Add

Fault Tolerance

Storage VMotion

VMotion

DRS + DPM

Virtual Center vSphere

Management Console
Physical Server Resources

14 Multi-Processor VMware Servers Total

6 Academic Services

4 node production cluster, 1 dev server, 1 test server

Location: CC data center

Storage: FAS 2050 High Availability Network-attached Storage

4 Enterprise Apps

2 x 2 node clusters

Location: 2 node cluster in each data center

Storage: HP EVA 6100 Fibre Channel SAN

4 NTS/Security

4 individual servers

Location: CC data center

Storage: Local storage only
Production software that is
virtualized

Academic Services

IS Keyserver

Computer Lab imaging servers

Computer Lab statistics collectors

Wiki.uoregon.edu Confluence Installation

CentralEPO McAfee EPO Anti-Virus Server

New Ithelp RT system

Systems

IS Print servers

IS MSSQL 2007 service

IS Sharepoint installation

IS WSUS Server for domain administration

Centralized MySQL master server

Cobbler system deployment tool

Jabber.uoregon.edu IS Chat collaboration tool

IS Content Management Systems (WordpressMU virtual hosting)
Production software that is
virtualized … continued

Administrative Services

Active Directory to Identity Manager gateway

LDAP Proxy

UO Departments and Units

Ufolio.uoregon.edu WordpressMU site

Ufolio-test Test WordpressMU site

Eportfolio.uoregon.edu website (AAA)

VPFA Web hosting box vpfa-prod drupal sites and other
hosting (VPFA)
Production software slated for
virtualization

Academic Services

Virtual Computing Labs - Researching

Replacement mailing list management software (Sympa) – NEW

Systems

Enhancements to test environment - NEW

Administrative Services

Document Imaging - Migration

Clean Address mailing verification software - NEW

Resource25 Web interface - NEW

UO Departments and Units

Blackboard Application Servers - Migration

College of Education – Lecture and class recording software – NEW
Additional Value of VMware

Development Environments

Testing new applications, methods, and migrations

AD project has used VMware extensively to speed

testing and ease provisioning of production resources.
AD Development Lab
 Philosophy: Consolidation “from
within”

26 Dell PowerEdge x950 servers in CC Data Center

Most average less that 10-20% CPU utilization and can
support large volumes of additional memory up to 64GB

Strategy: Migrate physical servers to virtual servers and
convert hardware to VMware servers as needed

Progress: RT servers, IS Print server, and IS Sharepoint
server

Future: Blackboard application servers

Cost: Approximately $16,000 per server converted
Questions?
VMware Pilot Program

What it is:

Virtual servers hosted in Information Services VMware
cluster(s)

Physical to Virtual conversion assistance

Lights-out management (vSphere Console Access)

What it isn’t:

Managed server environment

Application administration
Simple Process

Identify your application and contact
systems@ithelp.uoregon.edu

Assess current resource utilization

Configure performance monitoring and statistics gathering

Analyze historical performance data

Propose tier of VMware service or customized service

level

Perform test migration

Schedule downtime and final cutover
Available VMware Tiers

Tier 1

Single CPU, 24GB storage and 1024MB of RAM (minimum
resource reservation of 15% a physical CPU and 50% of
allocated memory)

Tier 2

Two CPUs, 32GB storage and 2048MB of RAM (minimum
resource reservation of 25% a physical CPU and 75% of
allocated memory)

Tier 3

Multiple CPUs, 32GB storage plus additional storage purchased
from storage offering, and more than 2048MB of RAM
(guaranteed resource reservation).
Success Stories

VPFA Web Server

Hosting over 80 sites

Presidents Blog

ODT Professional Development Website

DPS

many others….

Systems worked with VPFA staff to coordinate physical to
virtual migration of test and production hardware

Server is now hosted in IS data center and did not suffer
any loss of availability during power issues
Success Stories

Eportfolio.uoregon.edu

Server hosted in AAA with older hardware

RAID failure resulted in total loss of data

Restored server from bare-metal backup to a running VM

Restored service for the application as soon as the backup
recovery completed
Questions?
Storage Virtualization

Storage virtualization refers to the process of
separating (through abstraction) logical storage from
physical storage. The term is today used to describe this
separation at any layer in the storage software and
hardware stack. (Wikipedia)

Data is no longer tied to a specific disk or a specific

location and is now free to wander as needed
So What?

You no longer have to worry about single disk failure

If you need better performance, all you have to do is
add more or better disks

If you need more capacity, all you have to do is add
more disks

You now have a multitude of options to increase your
data redundancy

Access level (SAN/iSCSI fabric)

Block level (adjustable RAID configurations)

Logical level (selective multiple site replication)
Netapp 3070 – Single-Site High
Availability
Netapp 3170 - Multi-Site
Continuous Access
IS - Virtualized Storage Usage

Approximately 50,000 email accounts

Provide 2GB of highly available disk space for each
staff/faculty/student

Storage platform for VMware

UO homepage and associated Virtual Hosts

UO Webmail system and older Alphamail system

Provide storage service to AAA

Provide storage service to NERO
Netapp Filer Storage Service

Block level storage virtualization

iSCSI

Fiber Channel

Network attached storage virtualization

NFS (Unix/Linux)

CIFS (Windows/Mac)
Possible Storage Applications

Departmental file shares

My Documents redirection

Student or lab file storage

Workgroup file storage

Off-site backup-to-disk
targets

Production application data

Database volumes

Archival storage
 Tiered Service Offerings
FAS3070 HA Single Site FAS3170 CA Multi Site

Tier 1 Storage
Fiber Channel ✔ ✔
Tier 2 Storage
Serial Attached SCSI ✔ X
Tier 3 Storage
Large Serial ATA ✔ X
Single Site offerings are more cost-effective for applications that do not
require multi-site high availability
Service Offering Details

Installation, maintenance, and configuration of new and
existing hardware, firmware, license codes, and
software on storage appliance

Incident response related to disruptions of service from

the storage subsystem including but not limited to disk
failures, controller failures, fan failures, and other
equipment failures typical of a storage appliance

Provisioning of storage volumes or LUNS for presentation

to clients via one or more protocols
Service Offering Details

Integration of storage volumes into monitoring and alerting
system

After-hours response to system outages in accordance with
the Systems on-call policy

Performance monitoring of existing hardware

Configuration of De-Duplication (ASIS) and Snapshot
technology or other advanced storage system features.

Managing and processing renewal of all support agreements
covering hardware or software related to the storage
appliance

Access to Systems Hotline for direct support
Questions?