Benefits of Consolidating and Virtualizing Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint in a Private Cloud Environment

Transcription

1 . The Radicati Group, Inc Embarcadero Road, Suite 206 Palo Alto, CA Phone Fax THE RADICATI GROUP, INC. Benefits of Consolidating and Virtualizing Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint in a Private Cloud Environment Understanding the Role of Infrastructure to Ensure Success A Whitepaper by The Radicati Group, Inc.

2 Table of Contents Introduction Benefits of Deploying a Private Cloud Solution The Role of Virtualization EMC s Value Proposition Conclusions and Recommendations...11 This whitepaper was sponsored by EMC. Copyright February 2013, The Radicati Group, Inc. 2

3 INTRODUCTION Organizations are increasingly moving to the cloud because of the many advantages cloud computing offers in terms of cost, scalability and easy anywhere access. However, while the benefits of cloud computing are well understood many organizations are still nervous about the overall security and privacy of public cloud solutions and are opting instead for private cloud deployments. Private clouds offer all the same cost and flexibility advantages that have become synonymous with cloud, while at the same time ensuring a higher degree of services, privacy, security and overall data protection. Virtualization is becoming the cornerstone of any private cloud deployment as it enables organizations to more efficiently build out demanding computing environments. Virtualization technology lets businesses consolidate multiple computing environments on a single physical box which translates into key benefits that include lower costs, improved manageability, higher throughput, higher scalability and more flexible utilization of resources. Taken together, private cloud computing and virtualization deliver a secure environment that can scale with ease to meet changing workload demands while typically lowering IT costs and keeping budgets in check. Nowhere is this more important than in the context of Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint deployments. Microsoft Exchange Server has evolved to be the leading platform for mission-critical information delivery, and Microsoft SharePoint which is often deployed along with it, play an increasingly dominant role in enterprise information sharing and management. This whitepaper looks at the benefits of virtual private cloud deployment, and how EMC s private cloud virtualization technologies, solutions and services support the implementation of secure private cloud deployments of Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint. 1.0 BENEFITS OF DEPLOYING A PRIVATE CLOUD SOLUTION Organizations that are hesitant to abandon their on-premise deployments to embrace public cloud solutions can find the best of both worlds with a private cloud deployment. Shared computing resources in a public cloud can easily scare off any business that is nervous about data protection and security. Private clouds, on the other hand, give businesses the same elements of security and customization as on-premise deployments since the computing environment is dedicated and Copyright February 2013, The Radicati Group, Inc. 3

4 purpose-built to meet the organization s needs, while delivering on all of the important benefits of a cloud solution. In particular, private clouds offer the following benefits: Customization private clouds are purpose-built to meet an organization s requirements and can accommodate any level of customization that is required. Scalability private clouds can scale more easily to accommodate new users and databases as needed. Predictable on-going costs private cloud solutions allow businesses to more accurately budget their costs, and plan any IT investments accordingly. Simplified management and increased productivity by providing easier manageability, private cloud solutions allow organizations to focus their IT talent on managing more business-driven applications rather than being tied down with low level day to day management tasks. Higher uptime is realized with failover clusters, power backup sources, and other high availability techniques utilized in a private cloud. Uniform services are more easily provided to all users through a private cloud deployment. Not only does this simplify policy enforcement for employees at branch offices or users on the road, it also simplifies actual policy creation through a consolidated management interface. 2.0 THE ROLE OF VIRTUALIZATION Virtualization technology is essential in building effective private cloud environments. Virtualization lets businesses deploy multiple computing instances on the same physical server which translates to cost and management efficiencies across the board. Virtualization inherently addresses the need for scalability as it allows computing resources to be brought into play on an as needed basis as workload demands change. Two popular virtualization technologies today are Microsoft s Hyper-V and VMware s vsphere. While both solutions have their unique merits, they both provide the powerful underpinnings necessary to build out a successful virtual private environment. In particular, virtualization delivers on the following benefits: Copyright February 2013, The Radicati Group, Inc. 4

5 Dynamic resources let businesses distribute computing power to servers, business applications, and other software in each virtual machine (VM) on an as-needed basis. Virtualization accommodates as many VMs as the machine s resources can handle, as opposed to one computing environment on one box in a traditional installation. On-demand infrastructure lets organizations instantly create new computing environments. Evaluating new software, testing software updates, and other tasks that require a dedicated environment can all easily be done on an existing infrastructure instead of ordering a new system, or wiping an existing server. Fewer physical servers can save space, maintenance, energy, and other costs. Virtualizing some or all of a computing environment requires far fewer physical servers since each server running virtualization software usually has several VMs that each behave as a physical server. It is not uncommon for the consolidation ratio of dedicated, physical servers to servers running virtualization software to reach 10:1. Fewer software licenses for business applications can also be achieved in a virtualized environment since resources are used more efficiently. As the number of software licenses can often be divided by a factor of two or more in some scenarios, this benefit alone is often enough to cost justify the transition to virtualization. Easier maintenance and software updating can be achieved with virtualization. Software updates and routine maintenance on traditional server deployments are usually performed during abnormal business hours, such as midnight on a weekend. Virtualization, however, lets the IT department take care of these updates during normal business hours since the update can occur in a new VM while the original VM is still running. Improved IT staff utilization is also a benefit of fewer physical servers, fewer software licenses, and easier maintenance. IT personnel can re-focus their energies on managing more critical business applications. Favorable licensing for virtualization technologies is also available from many vendors. The differing license scenarios allow businesses more flexibility in selecting the solution that offers the best value. Copyright February 2013, The Radicati Group, Inc. 5

6 Higher availability and disaster recovery is achievable with virtualization since multiple VMs on a few servers can be restored much more quickly than an entire farm of dedicated, physical servers. 3.0 EMC S VALUE PROPOSITION EMC has long been recognized as a leader in helping customers of all sizes confidently consolidate, virtualize and transform their applications to the cloud. EMC is well known for its integration and support with VMware technologies, however, EMC also fully integrates and supports Microsoft s virtualization technologies including Windows Server Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center. To successfully implement a virtual private cloud, organizations need to deploy a set of technologies that can deliver on the following benefits: Efficient Storage and Content Management Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint server are all about storage management. As the volume of continues to spiral out of control and the amount of information grows, organizations need to be able to quickly and reliably expand their storage capacity. EMC storage solutions are designed to meet this need in a way that is transparent to end users while giving IT administrators clear control over resources. Utilizing hardware and software solutions from EMC, IT administrators can provide a dynamic environment that easily handles the addition of new users in Microsoft Exchange Server, or databases for Microsoft SharePoint. EMC offers the following solutions for storage and information management: o The VNX series offers a fully customizable unified data storage infrastructure that expands with ease to support varying information storage requirements. The VNX family fully supports provisioning, compression, and de-duplication in a virtual environment with storage configurations available up to more than a petabyte of data. The VNX series can effectively scale up or down to meet the storage needs of Microsoft Exchange Server users and SharePoint applications. The VNXe version is also available as an entry-level solution for smaller deployments. o The VMAX Family helps companies reliably accelerate their journey to the private cloud. The EMC VMAX portfolio is highly reliable and Microsoft Copyright February 2013, The Radicati Group, Inc. 6

7 Exchange and SharePoint easily integrate into this environment when deployed in a private cloud. VMAX fully supports virtualized mission critical applications like Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint on VMware and Hyper-V delivering high availability, robust performance and scale, and reduced TCO. Specifically for Microsoft virtual environments, the VMAX family provides a cohesive solution for businesses transitioning into a Microsoft based private or hybrid cloud environment. o The FAST Suite applies storage optimization on data residing in the storage array. It works at the array level to migrate storage blocks that are actively accessed to a higher performing tier, while also moving non-accessed storage blocks to a lower tier. It spreads data to the most appropriate storage based on how often the data is accessed and other heuristics. FAST enables organizations to better scale as data is stored, accessed, and delivered in a processor-efficient and cost-effective manner. These benefits will be especially noticeable with Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint given their intensive and variable storage needs. o VFCache keeps a copy of frequently used data on a PCI Express card with high performance memory that renders much faster delivery of data when compared to a traditional deployment that accesses data from bulk storage. It serves to reduce latency and is particularly useful to address hot spots like SharePoint databases. VFCache does not rely on processing power from the CPU for its operations, and in fact serves to offload some of the processing power from the CPU. o EMC SourceOne is a powerful solution for the long-term archiving of , Microsoft SharePoint, file systems and more. SourceOne for SharePoint enables content archival of wikis, blogs, contacts, and more. Archived content remains easily accessible with SourceOne for SharePoint, simplifying search and discovery of archived content. SourceOne for Exchange is capable of scaling from hundreds to millions of messages per day, with public folder archiving, advanced reporting, auditing, and more. Archiving data from Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint improves their ability to scale since they do not become bogged down with too much data. Simple and Efficient Management Capabilities Creating a simple management interface for IT administrators can immensely cut down the time and effort needed to run a Copyright February 2013, The Radicati Group, Inc. 7

8 successful virtual private cloud. With an efficient management infrastructure in place, IT administrators can spend more time on important tasks instead of doling out their time to low level maintenance tasks. EMC has several solutions specifically aimed at easing management of virtual environments: o EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI) is provided as a free plug-in for VMware vcenter on all EMC arrays, such as the VNX series. VSI simplifies the provision and management of VMware vsphere Datastores. From the VSI interface, administrators can provision storage, clone VMs, compress VMs, monitor datastores, and more. The ability to quickly and easily access these features from the VMware vcenter allows much simpler management of any application installed on a virtual machine. o EMC Storage Integrator (ESI) is designed to work with Microsoft applications to provision storage, set permissions, and more. The solution is most useful with Microsoft SharePoint, but it certainly extends its functionality to other Microsoft applications, such as Microsoft Exchange Server. ESI can be used as a standalone solution, or it can integrate with the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) for an easier deployment by administrators already using MMC. High-Availability High-availability is key when deploying mission-critical applications such as Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint. Keeping these applications available with minimal downtime is paramount to running a successful organization. Beyond delivering a robust hardware infrastructure, EMC places a strong focus on backup, replication, and other technologies that create high-availability for all deployments. The foundation of availability for private cloud virtualization is backup. But in virtualized environments, server consolidation can mean overlapping backup windows and heavy impact on hardware resources bringing backups to a crawl. This can stall virtualization projects or put data at risk because it is not properly backed up, making recovery uncertain. Key solutions for solving these issues and delivering highavailability include: o The EMC Avamar deduplication software and system provides unique capabilities to break through virtual backup barriers, with application consistent SharePoint and Exchange backup and recovery, tight integration with VMware's VADP and vcenter, and Changed Block Tracking (CBT) for backup and recovery. Avamar also delivers the same key advantages for Hyper-V backup as Copyright February 2013, The Radicati Group, Inc. 8

9 well. Plus, Avamar s integration with EMC Data Domain Boost software enables users to selectively send SharePoint, Exchange, Hyper-V and VMware image backups to a Data Domain deduplication storage system. With this integration, administrators can choose the best approach by workload but with the efficiency and simplicity of Avamar managing it all. As a result, EMC Backup solutions for virtual environments can help reduce backup times by up to 90%, as well as speed up recoveries by 30x, help save storage and bandwidth resources, and accelerate private cloud virtualization 1. o EMC AppSync and EMC Replication Manager were created for situations where more frequent copies of data are needed beyond a daily backup. Although AppSync was designed for the VNX platform and Replication Manager was designed for the VMAX platform, both solutions provide automated applicationaware protection of application data that integrates tightly with array-based snapshots and continuous data protection technologies. These solutions are typically used to complement existing backup and native high availability options by enabling very fast restores of entire databases or single items. In Proven Solutions tests, it was possible to restore 1TB of Exchange 2010 data in 5 minutes using EMC AppSync with VNX Snapshots 2. Creating an Environment with Enterprise-Grade Security Features Security is of course one of the key concerns in any organization. Maintaining privacy and data integrity begins with granting and controlling access only to authorized users. Controlling access, however, is only half the battle since even authorized users can sometimes be negligent with confidential data. The ability to control how confidential data is used is just as important as controlling the actual access to it. The RSA division of EMC is entirely dedicated to developing leading edge security solutions that fully address all enterprise security needs. In particular, RSA delivers the following solutions which can be leveraged to build a secure private cloud infrastructure: o For users accessing data in private clouds, sometimes one-factor authentication is not sufficient. The SecurID solution from RSA, provides organizations with a dynamic authentication token that keeps access to user files and corporate 1 Performance data was provided by EMC. 2 Performance data was provided by EMC. Copyright February 2013, The Radicati Group, Inc. 9

10 secure while maintaining a user-friendly authentication experience. RSA SecurID creates an access point to Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SharePoint, and all other business applications that is virtually impenetrable to outsiders. o The RSA Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solution treats data loss protection on virtual machines just as it would on a traditional machine. While many DLP vendors offer a lessened set of data protection features on virtual machines, the RSA DLP solution can offer the proper protection needed to monitor the range of data, confidential or not, being passed or stored on virtual machines. A secure DLP scenario is essential in the context of Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange Server deployments which typically contain a great deal of sensitive organization information. EMC Global Services, Proven Solution Infrastructure and Support deploying virtual private cloud solutions requires careful calibration of resources and a solid understanding of how individual technology components can best work together. Since several virtual machines often run on a single box, it is even more important to ensure that the proper storage, processor, networking, and backup are properly selected. EMC provides organizations with a variety of proven server configurations that can be used to deploy Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint virtual private cloud solutions that take the guess-work away for IT administrators. Customization and installation can be as detailed as necessary, or the deployment can be created with turn-key packages that require little effort on the part of IT administrators. o EMC s VSPEX Proven Infrastructure is a reference architecture designed for flexibility and tested and validated by EMC to ensure interoperability and fast deployment. All factors are considered when building out a system, and each system can be purpose-built to handle specific business-critical applications. VSPEX enables organizations to choose the hypervisor, server and networking components and combine them with EMC s leading-edge storage and backup solutions to create a private cloud that supports their virtualized Microsoft application requirements. o Beyond the documentation, user forums, and other resources widely available to customers, EMC also has a professional services team available to help businesses upgrade, migrate and architect the ideal Microsoft Exchange Server or Microsoft SharePoint deployment configuration when setting up a virtual private cloud. Copyright February 2013, The Radicati Group, Inc. 10

11 o EMC s continuing strong working relationship with Microsoft, also gives the vendor access to a wide range of Microsoft resources that help EMC provide customers with more effective options and support. Working with Microsoft, EMC can offer joint support agreements, access to consultants, and other services. The close relationship with Microsoft also ensures that EMC customers running Microsoft software and applications will be among the first to receive EMC solution updates that take advantage of any new Exchange or SharePoint features. 4.0 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS EMC offers an end-to-end value proposition for organizations looking to build solid virtual private cloud solutions for Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft SharePoint. EMC s wide range of expertise, support for leading virtualization technologies and breadth of infrastructure solutions can provide customers with powerful end-to-end virtualization solutions and confidence to transition to the cloud. EMC provides simple, efficient and flexible private cloud solutions that can support these Microsoft deployments through EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. Larger customers, with more complex requirements, can also still build out their own variations to best meet their specific needs. EMC solutions provide IT departments with numerous efficiencies in how to deploy a virtual private cloud environment. From hardware to software, to professional services EMC can deliver lower TCO and drive a seamless experience for all aspects of IT administration. More importantly, EMC makes building and managing virtual private cloud solutions a reality for businesses of all sizes. For most organizations today, virtual private cloud deployments provide secure and information management solutions at predictable costs with greater resiliency, high-availability and effective resource management than ever experienced before. Copyright February 2013, The Radicati Group, Inc. 11