2009 AAMGA Automation Conference

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2 2009 AAMGA Automation Conference Kenny Morris, MCSE Manager of Network Services CRC Insurance Services, Inc.

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4 Server Infrastructure 170 servers 70% in Central Datacenter 25% of server farm are Virtual servers 40 virtual servers running on 8 VM Hosts Reduced physical servers by 20 in 1 year 99 % Windows servers Backup and Recovery D2D2D Backup on all systems Disaster recovery plan includes restoring Physical servers to Virtual servers in a total disaster scenario

5 Physical Servers Virtual Server Host Virtual Machines Guests

6 Server Consolidation Testing Server Virtualization Rapid Deployment Disaster Recovery

7 Server Consolidation Lower Decreases Stops Server cost cost for Sprawl full of creating Lab (1 deployment application reliable fail-over = 1 server) Less systems Saves time money to set up Lab environment Testing Decreases Less of ACPatches the time and involved application to restore upgrades servers in a Less Disaster Real Crisis Estate Less Power Consumption Fewer Hardware Support agreements Reduces Administration Workload Fewer Physical servers to maintain Eliminates Legacy OS maintenance and worry Answers problems with aging hardware (end of service life issues)

8 Server Testing Rapid Deployment Consolidation Lower Speeds cost deployment for full Lab of production deploymentmachines Less Physical time to set 2-6 up weeks Lab environment Testing Virtual of Patches a few hours and application upgrades

9 Server TestingConsolidation Lower cost for full Lab deployment Less time to set up Lab environment Testing of Patches and application upgrades

10 Server Testing Rapid Disaster Deployment Consolidation Recovery Lower Decreases cost cost for full of creating Lab deployment reliable fail-over Less systems time to set up Lab environment Testing Decreases of Patches the time and involved application to restore upgrades servers in a Disaster Crisis

11 3 Types of Virtualization

12 Choices for Free Virtualization of Windows VMWare ESXi (Pros): Industry leader with 9 years of maturation and sophistication It s free (well, not really) admin tools must be purchased to manage it Available as embedded component on new servers, simplifying deployment Sophisticated add-ons to ease administration (extra cost) Fast and very stable product Bare Metal Installation (32MB) = Low overhead capacity to add lots of VMs to a single Virtual Host RAM over-commitment means total VMs RAM can exceed physical RAM of the host Transparent page sharing means identical memory pages that appear across multiple virtual machines can be stored just once (think memory de-duping ) Free VMware vcenter Converter tool allows easy P2V and V2V conversions Supports lots of OS Solaris 10, Windows, Ubuntu, etc Online backup of full VMs provided via agents by most major Backup Software vendors Excellent support (additional cost) VMWare ESX (Cons): Upfront cost (TCO may be about same as other free virtualization systems) Limited amount of approved hardware Complexity and resources required to set it up initially (requires a virtual management server) Limited to 128 VMs on a Host

13 Choices for Free Virtualization of Windows Microsoft Hyper V Server (Pros): Free with either Windows Server 2008 (Hyper-V) or as bare-metal install (2008 Hyper-V Server) Free OS installations with MS Windows 2008 Host OS Windows 2008 Standard = 1 Free Virtual Machine OS Windows 2008 Enterprise = 4 Free Virtual Machine OS Windows 2008 DataCenter = Unlimited Free Virtual Machine OS Para-Virtualization may lead to substantial performance gains Supports up to 4 multiple processors on the VM Memory allocations for VMs up to 64GB Installed on servers with Intel-VT or AMD-V processors Supports clustering multiple Virtual hosts so VMs can fail-over to another host Supports up to 64 CPU sockets and 2TB of memory on Host Supports Unlimited VMs on a host (192 on Hyper-V server) Supports VSS online backups of VMs Microsoft Hyper V Server (Cons): Must be installed on 64 Bit architecture VM Converter must be purchased (SCVMM) Does not allow RAM over-allocation or Memory de-duping 1 st Generation product

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15 Why Every Company Should be using Server Virtualization Typical performance tests show existing servers are only utilizing 10-15% of their available CPU processing power Most companies has experienced server sprawl with the typical 1 application = 1 server philosophy Reaching upper limits of server room capacity can mean costly infrastructure upgrades (space, AC, UPS, Generator, security, fire supression systems, etc..) Most companies over 5 years old, have approx % of their server population nearing end of live (EOL) Simplifies and speeds up the deployment of servers Low cost and simple lab deployment for testing of software and patches on exact duplicates of production machines Desire to have a viable Disaster recovery plan leads companies to consider the use of virtual servers as an alternative to expensive physical machines

16 Desktop Virtualization VIRTUAL SERVER HOSTS CONNECTION BROKER MANAGEMENT TOOLS

17 Types of Desktop Virtualization Client-hosted Virtualization Virtual PC runs on user s desktop Can be loaded from removable media Centrally managed virtual machines can be loaded from file shares Good way to have visitor transform their PC to your approved template Uses Management server to monitor packages and enforce corporate policies from central location Example: VMWare ACE, Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MEDV) CON: Doesn t work with multiple monitors

18 Types of Desktop Virtualization Streaming Desktop Desktop streaming uses existing PC hardware Delivers a centrally stored image to a bare-metal PC on the LAN at startup Similar to a network boot using PXE Virtual machine runs on the existing PC, but is streamed from a central location Desktop is customized based on the user s profile Example: XenDesktop 3 CON: Slow boot up

19 Types of Desktop Virtualization Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) VIRTUAL SERVER HOSTS CONNECTION BROKER MANAGEMENT TOOLS

20 Types of Desktop Virtualization Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Server-Hosted Virtualzation Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) This broad term is actually a concept or architecture not actual piece of software Concept is simple: Instead of user running a local copy of desktop OS, you run the desktop OS in your datacenter. Then your users connect remotely. Uses Virtual server to host independent virtual desktops A connection broker manages dynamic provisioning of virtual desktops from predefined templates You can use any Virtual server host or any desktop template On surface sounds like Citrix TS, but not Examples of brokers: XenDesktop 3, VMWare VDI, Quest VWorkspace CON: Not many

21 VDI: A Closer Look VIRTUAL SERVER HOSTS CONNECTION BROKER MANAGEMENT TOOLS

22 VDI: Benefits Ease of patching desktops virus, SP and critical updates Ease of new Software\OS roll-out Persistent or temporary desktops Consider using Application Virtualization (Thin-App, App-V) Ability to reduce your PC hardware refresh rate Consolidate applications and files to a central datacenter

23 VDI: Important Points Speed of storage is very important Redundancy of Virtual hosts is important Network connection speed back to the thin client is very important Use a connection broker that has an advanced RDP If you re going to use temporary desktops, you may want to explore using a virtual apps component as well

24 Server Virtualization Best Practices Memory allocation Be careful if you intend to use memory overallocation with ESX you don t want your production servers paging memory to file Install Integration Services(Microsoft) or VMWare Tools on your VM this optimizes video drivers and gives you fluid mouse control between host and guest systems Use SCSI drivers for your virtual hard disks on ESX they are optimized for better I/O performance than IDE. On Hyper-V MS has upgraded the IDE drivers so they provide similar performance to SCSI, so you can use either. Don t forget to backup your VM - install backup agents for normal backup or use a backup agent with your favorite software to backup the entire VM while online. Use Fixed disks provides better performance than dynamic disks for a production VM. Use dynamic for testing only Install multiple NICs on your host machine this can help prevent networking bottlenecks on the host Beware VM server sprawl ease of setup makes it tempting to throw up a server in a few minutes for a new app. Make sure you need all new VMs in your environment, or you will waste important VM Host resources with VM sprawl

25 Sources Microsoft Desktop Virtualization Strategy Abstract