Low Cost VMWare Infrastructure Bill Lloyd IT Manager

Low Cost VMWare Infrastructure Bill Lloyd IT Manager Busker Communications

Welcome to the August 2007 CITRT Meeting I am… • Bill Lloyd I am from … http: //www. buskercom. com • Busker Communications • Network Infrastructure Company • CAT 5 e & CAT 6 Cabling • Fiber Optic • A/V Cabling & Equipment • Outside Plant Cabling • Small to very Large Jobs 2

Purpose The purpose of my presentation… • show that even small companies can use VMWare with shared storage and still accomplish similar goals of large firms. • share with you my experience and a little bit about how we got to where we are now. • reveal a couple of problems that aren’t show stoppers but might give you a heads up. • demonstrate some of the functions of the shared storage we chose; which made it practical to implement VMWare. • not to sell a product; just share with you something very helpful to us which might prove useful to others. Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 3

History Beginning At Busker… I’ve been part of the Busker Communications Team for about eight months. We have almost 90 employees http: //www. buskercom. com I support 10 servers, 40 workstations, 25 Black. Berrys, and 60 cell phones. When I first came there were several problems for me to address. The major issue to address was the network infrastructure. 4

In the Beginning Too Many Services…. Not Enough Servers Main Domain Controller • DC • Black Berry Enterprise Server • File Server • Print Server • Database Server • DNS, WINS, & DHCP • Customer Extranet • Symantec Anti-Virus Web Server Exchange Server • Exchange Server • SQL Server • File Server • Backup Server • Remote Scanner • Public Web Server Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 5

Problems There were many problems with this structure… • No Scalability • Growing company… • Disaster Recovery is very complicated • Loss of one server has too much impact • Too much interdependencies • If one service needed a reboot… • High potential of application conflict… • Security issues… Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 6

Implementation Big Question How do we change this structure? Low Cost Reliable Easy to

Criteria The Answer was Virtualization… But that means I need two things… First, I needed a low cost alternative to ESX Server. • For our size company ESX was just too expensive. • ESX Starter Edition is available, but it won’t let you use shared storage. • Decided on VMWare Server, which was GSX Server Secondly, I needed a low cost shared storage solution. • I decided to look for an i. SCSI SAN solution. • Shared storage had several advantages… • Load balancing and D/R being greatly simplified, (though still manual operations). Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 8

The Solution VMWare to the Rescue • Network can easily grow with the company • Right Now Just VMWare Server… • Later migrate to ESX • Greatly reduce the possibility of application conflicts • If one service is down others are still available • Properly separate business services without the added hardware costs • Disaster recovery is greatly enhanced • Minimal hardware issues in recovery Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 9

My SAN The First Pass… My SAN • Advantages… • Free • Uses Windows • Easy to install • Easy to use • Uses existing hardware • Disadvantages… • Volumes are only available to original VMHost • No upgrade path • Developed to attract to hardware Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 10

Searching Discovery of SAN Melody • After My. SAN almost gave up on inexpensive SAN • I’m not a Linux user; Need Windows product • After several Google Searches found SAN Melody • Suite of products to achieve future goals • Components to Virtualize Storage • Replicate data across a WAN link • Can be purchased for as little as $200 Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 11

SAN Melody Good Choice… SAN Melody • Advantages for Busker… • Low Cost • Developed as an enterprise solution • Uses Windows • Easy to install • Easy to use • Can use existing hardware • Volumes are easily connected to by other VMHosts • Highly scalable • Disadvantages • None for my purposes Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 12

SAN Melody Current & Planned Systems One Cisco 3750, Layer 3, Gigabit Switch • Four VLANs • SAN, Server, Workstation, Phone Four Servers • SAN • DL 380 g 3, 6 146 gb, 10 k drives, dual power, dual processor, 2 gbs of RAM, and 4 gigabit NICs • Two VMHosts • DL 380 g 3 & g 4. One with 4 gbs memory, the other with 9 gbs • Both with dual processors • One Backup and Utility Server One Future Project • Upgrade VMHost • Use old VMHost as off-site replication partner Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 13

SAN Melody Nothing is perfect… When trying to build a VMDK, all other servers dropped In an i. SCSI environment, etherchannel/channel-groups should be used in order to maximize performance at both the storage servers (SANmelody SDS) and the applications servers (VMware/Windows/Unix). In order to accomplish this you must first have a Gigabit switch that is capable of 802. 3 ad Static/Dynamic etherchannel. Next you need at least two gigabit Ethernet cards/ports (two for the storage server and two for the application server). Lastly you need to configure the switch (first) and the NICs (second). Once etherchannel is in place, your servers will be fault tolerant and load balanced at full duplex speeds. Most typical NIC teaming is outbound (transmit) load balancing only. Another name for etherchannel is switch assisted load balancing. (Jeffrey Slapp, VCPFairway Consulting Group, Inc. ) Sometimes Performance is less than desirable • Major data moves, (backups, file copies, creating VMs) Watch that you set the VM service logon correctly Don’t set the VM logon to private Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 14

SAN Melody Demonstration Windows VM Hosts use the Microsoft i. SCSI Initiator Interface New

Conclusion Questions? Feel free to give me a call or come and visit to see how we are setup. Bill Lloyd 5375 Oakbrook Parkway Norcross, GA 30093 Phone: 770 -417 -1604 blloyd@buskercom. com Copyright © 2005 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. 16