Ralph Carlone

Project Guide: Virtualization

Virtualization technologies from vendors like AWS, VMware, Microsoft, and Citrix allow you to transform your computing infrastructure to take better advantage of the hardware resources you have invested in. These technologies allow you to realistically run ten or more heterogeneous operating systems at the same time on one physical machine. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

1. Virtualization Assessments

You will typically want certified AWS, VMware, or Microsoft professionals that can quickly and unobtrusively assess the servers in your data centers to determine which systems are candidates for virtualization. Whether you have 10 or 10,000 servers, most companies can realize amazing savings and efficiencies through the use of virtualization. An assessment can be turned into a customized and actionable project plan for precisely how to migrate your existing physical servers to virtual ones.

2. Architecture & Design

With your inventory completed, our experienced consultants can help you design and build world-class virtual infrastructure. Virtualized systems are cheaper and easier to manage, can provide much higher levels of uptime and recoverability, and provide for far more efficient use of the hardware you invest in.

3. Implementation

A virtual infrastructure will undoubtedly extend the capabilities of your resources to levels never before realized. Successfully building and populating your virtual infrastructure is critical to its long-term effectiveness. We can build and teach you how to take full advantage of virtual technologies to unleash the full power of your investments.

4. Governance

We know from experience the pitfalls that can arise in a virtualized infrastructure. From server sprawl to the proliferation of non-standard builds, we can help you craft governing policies to control the use of the environment long after the project ends.

Data Center Move Backup Process

Client Overview:

The client provides next generation business solutions that streamline the corporate payment process. Headquartered in Atlanta, GA, our client serves numerous Fortune 1000 companies, including 7 of the Fortune 100 companies.

Business Problem:

Following the client acquisition by American Express, they were asked to move over 200 servers from a downtown Atlanta location to a more modern data center at the clients headquarter location. The servers were a broad mix of aging IBM, Dell, and Compaq/HP hardware. Some systems were more than seven years old and ran Windows NT 4.0, but still performed mission critical tasks.

Strict system uptime requirements, along with the aging critical hardware dictated several layers of recovery methods in the event of a failure during the move. Although the IT department had spent several months on planning the move, there was no clear answer on how to protect the company assets to prevent catastrophic system and/or data loss during the physical move process. Traditional backup/restore methods were not viable due to the downtime window being far less than the time it would take to build and restore data to the systems. There were just a few weeks left before the move date and there were only a total of 13 overnight hours available each weekend in order to capture systems images for backup.

The Facts:

There were a large number of antiquated hosts running critical applications on Windows NT 4.0 platforms
Systems had to be captured during relatively short maintenance windows and there was not a lot of room for error based on the published move date.
An entire swing environment was rented for a VMware farm and stand-alone physical servers that were to be used to deploy images of the production environment to.
Some systems required that the backup instance be updated to the point of the start of the maintenance window in order to ensure data consistency and transaction accuracy.
We were able to choose the tools for this project – PlateSpin PowerConvert and VMware Server.

The Solution:

We utilized standardized IBM xSeries swing gear that was provided on a rental basis by a local partner. Additionally, we employed PlateSpin PowerConvert and VMware Server to create an agile recovery environment within the customer’s existing network.

As the first level of protection, we virtualized each critical system and housed them all in a VMware Server environment that was built on-site.

PlateSpin PowerConvert was used to reprovision the virtual server instances on to the bare metal IBM physical swing gear to provide a physical replacement option for the more resource intensive and demanding systems. PowerConvert was also used to maintain data consistency between the running production servers and the standby virtual and physical systems after initial capture.

Due to an extremely limited timetable, a strategy was developed to leverage the remaining after-hours maintenance windows and extended daytime hours to perform all virtualization and restoration activities. The client provided space in the new data center and verified the functionality of the standby instances of the production environment in an isolated environment.

The Results:

When the move window opened at midnight, the critical systems were in a standby state as virtual machines and stand-alone physical systems.

In accordance with the customers desired options for recovery, we had created three distinct options for recovery in the event of a failure – hardware repair on the original system, a physical standby server, and a virtual instance that could be immediately turned on and put into production.

The client expressed gratitude for the level of insurance that was created for their systems. Unplanned downtime after the window would cost them millions of dollars per minute, and we were prepared to ensure and guarantee that such outages would be remedied immediately and with confidence.

Project Guide: Asset Management

Our Asset Management expertise can lead you to an accurate and up-to-date view of the technology assets deployed across your organization. Understanding the current environment and all the “moving parts” within it allows you to create a customized road map for consolidating and optimizing your infrastructure. The end result of this process will be a more secure, less costly, and more efficient computing environment.

A successful asset management project will contain steps similar to the below:

1. Discovery

Gather detailed information about your servers, applications, and infrastructure in order to evaluate their suitability to run the business. Use a blend of automated and manual activities to ensure you uncover everything within the environment. Intelligent documentation can be used to create an interactive asset list that can be used as the starting point for a configuration management database (CMDB).

2. Utilization Profiles

Beyond the physical and logical detail of your assets is a performance-based profile illustrating the utilization and efficiency of each system. Average industry statistics show that about 80% of all servers are only 10% utilized, which means that most companies already own far more equipment than they need to perform the current workload. You should collect and illustrate performance data to clearly show idle, busy, and peak operating hours, days, and months for each server.

3. Data Flow Diagrams

Your environment is a complex web of interdependencies and relationships that continuously changes and complicates your ability to stay on top of each resource you manage. A complete asset discovery will include a mapping of how your systems and applications relate to one another across and within your network.

4. Consolidation

There are several industry-leading technologies that allow you to quickly and safely consolidate your physical systems, applications, and storage. Virtualization and imaging technology maturation has opened up a world of new options to suit just about every possible need for reducing the number of components you consume and pay for.

Benefits of Virtualization

Whether you are currently aware of the many benefits of virtualization or not, one fact is clear – virtualization technologies will provide the foundation for future infrastructures and change the model of computing environments as we know them today. Today’s data center is moving towards an “agile computing” environment which decouples your business’ applications from individual and specific server assets. With virtualization, the total collection of your resources – Disk, CPU, RAM, and NIC – comprise a defined pool of resources that are dynamically allocated in real-time to meet the needs of any given task. Further, systems are dynamically moved from one physical server to another when a hardware failure is detected or when more resources are needed than are available in your existing pool. A complete system can be moved across your WAN from New York to Los Angeles automatically and with no apparent impact to the users working on it!

Go Green Without Spending Your Green

“Going green” is all the rage these days. It is a concept that we should all embrace for the betterment of the environment and to more efficiently consume resources.

Green practices start with a frame of mind or a goal to deliberately focus your actions to be aligned with green concepts. Companies gain a great advantage by declaring themselves “green” through tax breaks and public opinion, second to actually helping the environment.

Companies should take caution when declaring a green state to obtain publicity or favor in that even if you have implemented every change possible to be classified as a green company, your employees may still drive “gas guzzlers” or not practice green concepts while at client sites or other venues during the course of doing business. It is difficult to maintain a perception of being green when you show up in a luxury sport utility vehicle that gets fifteen miles to the gallon!

Going green can bring bleeding edge technologies to your company for a price, so you should weigh your desire to be green with being what we call “fashionably green”. Cutting edge products can do things like automatically migrating virtual servers to run on a fewer number of hosts during off-peak hours while powering off unneeded hosts to save electricity. While on the surface this sounds like a great way to save money and help the environment, the costs for virtualizing your environment, investing in the specialized servers and racks that facilitate automated power functions, and purchasing the software licenses to control it all may very well outweigh the savings you get from powering of some hosts at night. Avoid going fashionably green in favor of implementing green practices that make sense from every angle.

There is good news, though. At a time when everyone is trying to economize every facet of business, you can employ green techniques today and begin the transformation into being a more consciously aware company while saving a boatload of money in the process.

Here are some ideas that will directly impact your bottom line while raising awareness and participation by all members of your organization:

Computers and Peripherals

Servers – Consolidating the physical number of servers and networking gear that are plugged in and turned on is one of the best places to start saving money. Between the power, cooling, and rack cost savings alone, you will see direct results on your next energy bill.
Desktop PC’s – Most modern PC’s are equipped with various “sleep modes” that balance energy consumption with how fast it will “wake up”. PC’s should be put in low power states when the user has been away for fifteen minutes or longer and during non-working hours.
Monitors & Speakers – Monitors and speakers consume a great deal of electricity, especially when left on all the time. Screensavers do not do anything to save electricity, but using your systems built-in power features will. Turning off speakers when not in use will save a significant amount of electricity and money.
Peripherals – Unplug items when they are not in use. For example, a tape backup unit that only runs at night does not need to be powered on all the time and printers probably do not need to be powered on overnight. Look for settings on your devices that will put the unit in a low energy consumption mode after a set amount of time. Also, look for devices that run on the power provided through the USB port rather than a dedicated power cord.

General Office

Telecommuting – With the mobile technologies available to us today and the blurring lines between business hours and personal time, there is no reason to not consider the financial recovery available through the adoption of telecommuting policies. Reduced office space and daily power consumption coupled with reduced fuel and emissions related to travel to and from the office add up to a very green company profile.
Travel and Meetings – While some situations call for traveling to a remote site, careful consideration should be given to business travel. Advances in teleconferencing software and services have made for extremely reliable and user-friendly ways to host and participate in face to face conferences over your existing network infrastructure. There are business quality solutions available for free, so the cost of a modest webcam is your only barrier to entry if you would like to cut down on business travel.
Lighting – It seems obvious, but turn the lights off when you leave a conference room. An unoccupied room really doesn’t need to be illuminated.
Think twice before printing something.
Use “draft” quality when printing documents to save ink.
Use energy efficient light bulbs in your office and home where possible.

These are just a few simple ways that you can begin addressing the green issues and start saving real money in the process without requiring any special expertise or additional investment.