Remote/Branch Office IT Consolidation with Lenovo S2200 SAN and Microsoft Hyper-V Most data centers routinely utilize virtualization and cloud technology to benefit from the massive cost savings and resource flexibility features. However, many Remote Office/Branch Office (ROBO) locations continue to deploy applications on whatever server, workstation or PC is locally available. The standardization and governance standards so prevalent in the data center are often ignored or unenforced at a ROBO location. Simply migrating all ROBO applications to the data center is not the answer, as ROBOs face unique challenges that may require onsite systems. Infrastructure services, such as domain controllers, DNS and DHCP often require local servers so that the user logon process does not require traversing the Wide Area Network (WAN). Some ROBO mission-critical applications may require the low network latency provided by a Local Area Network (LAN). In addition, some legacy applications may require a physical key or dongle to reside on a local server for licensing purposes. In today s always-on environment, users have come to have the same expectations of ROBO applications as they do from those provided by the data center. Organizations can no longer afford to deploy ROBO applications on any available computer, irrespective of form factor. Organizations require a modern, centralized system capable of hosting many virtual machines (VMs) at a consistent performance level. This white paper describes a scenario characteristic of many ROBOs and small to medium (SMB) companies. Typically, such organizations are budget constrained and with limited IT staff, yet charged with the mission of improving efficiency and consolidating resources. This Microsoft Hyper-V Private Cloud deployed on Lenovo rack servers and entry-level S2200 SAN enables such a solution, providing rapid time to value at a very attractive price point.
Challenges This scenario characterizes the IT environment of a typical ROBO. A satellite campus for a rapidly expanding university illustrates such an environment. Despite the expansion, campus IT budgets have remained static for several years, requiring the IT team to deploy applications on whatever hardware was available in order to support classroom requirements. The servers and PCs spread across various locations throughout the campus. In addition, although the campus IT groups are familiar with Active Directory Domain Services (ADDS) and manage their own ADDS partition, their expertise lies in Windows workstation technology. Documentation is virtually non-existent and backups run on a best-effort basis. Virtualization Project and Requirements The campus President procured budget for an application consolidation project. The project is intended to support application migration from the various form factors to a centralized infrastructure. All applications supported by campus IT will be virtualized and hosted in a centralized, secure location with remote access. Requirements for the campus solution include: Virtualization All applications to be virtualized and migrated to the new infrastructure via Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) program Windows environment Familiar interface for IT administrators Centralized storage A Storage Area Network (SAN) will provide the data store for applications, centralized storage for the virtual solution and backup repository Tiered storage Planned database applications require tiered storage; a hybrid configuration of Solid State Disks (SSD) for data access and Hard Disk Drives (HDD) for data storage Ease of management - Solution must provide self-service provisioning and easeof-management; no SAN administrator available Low cost of entry Restricted budget High availability Redundancy to provide business continuity Backup and Recovery Storage onsite for rapid recovery; scheduled backup window Storage Snapshot Copy live data prior to upgrades Security - The new environment will be maintained in a secured campus location; security patches and maintenance regularly scheduled Scalable Ability to accommodate capacity and performance as needed Proposed System Architecture A Microsoft Hyper-V Private Cloud deployed on Lenovo servers and storage is proposed to meet the campus requirements. This architecture provides a complete and scalable virtualization platform, with redundant server topology and highly available storage. The configuration includes Lenovo RD450 rack servers with SAS host ports and features the Lenovo Storage S2200 SAN, supplying the consolidated infrastructure to support a Hyper-V Private Cloud. Figure 1 depicts the components of the solution.
SE CASE Figure 1 Overview of Solution Architecture All About Lenovo Storage S2200 SAN The new Lenovo Storage S2200 SAN is designed for simplicity, speed and scalability; and is positioned to provide excellent value for a ROBO environment. The S2200 delivers a consolidated storage array solution to meet departmental and small to medium business requirements with 8Gb Fibre Channel, 6/12Gb SAS, and 1Gb/ 10GbE iscsi systems accommodating SAS, NL-SAS Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), Solid State Drives (SSDs) and Self- Encrypting Drives (SEDs) at a convenient price point. The S2200 offers industry-leading feature as: Intelligent Real-Time Tiering (IRTT) with flash hybrid arrays. IRRT provides workload-aware intelligence, automatically migrating data to where it s needed in real time. Hybrid arrays combine high-performing flash or SSDs with high-capacity HDDs. IRTT provides continuous background scanning for hot data every five seconds. Sophisticated algorithms immediately accelerate the most active storage blocks to flash with the most responsive performance. IRRT enables 83% cost savings over an All Flash Array (AFA) without impact to system performance. Industry-leading Intelligent Real Time Tiering Hybrid Arrays (SSD/HDD) Data scan every 5 seconds Automatic hot data migration to SSD 83% cost savings over All Flash Array Delivering up to 288TB of raw storage with ruggedized components, the S2200 is designed for 99.999% (five 9 s ) availability, protecting ROBO data from downtime and enabling the always-on availability that users have come to expect for application access. Upgrade flexibility of the S2000 is ideal for ROBOs with expanding storage needs and small budgets. Providing a straightforward upgrade path for customers requiring performance or capacity increases, in-chassis migration enables the S2200 to be upgraded to a Lenovo S3200 without data migration. Simply swapping from S2200 storage controllers to S3200 controllers within the same chassis increases maximum capacity from 96 drives to 192 drives. The S2200 enables easy expansion with hot-pluggable E1012 and E1024 expansion units; plug and play capability immediately recognizes and enables the expansion units. Table 1 provides an overview of S2200 SAN features..
. USE EE Table 1 - S2200 Overview Features (including Description software options) Form Factor 2U Chassis Type 12 LFF drives 24 SFF drives Chassis Max 4 (1 Controller Unit + 3 Expansion Units) E1012 Expansion Unit E1024 Expansion Unit Maximum Capacity 288TB Raw Storage Drive Max 96 Drive Type LFF/SFF Unique technology Real-time storage tiering Battery-free Cache Protection Synchronous low latency cache mirroring Multiple drive types 2,5-inch/3,5-inch supported 7k/10k/15k SAS SSD SED RAID Levels RAID 0, 1, 3, 50, 6, 60 and 10 Virtualized Storage Pools Multiple protocols supported Performance highlights SSD Read Cache Real-time HDD tiering Cache Snapshot Yes 4/8Gb FC 1/10Gb iscsi 6/12 Gb SAS 80.000 Read IOPs 3.300 MBps Read 2.400 MBps Write Yes Yes 12G per system (6GB per controller) 64 base (Up to 512 optional) Lenovo SAN Manager enables: Automated Tiered Storage Storage Pooling Thin Provisioning Rapid Rebuils Large LUNs SSD Read Cache Virtualized Snapshots All about Lenovo SAN Manager The Lenovo SAN Manager User Interface provides intuitive setup and management of both S2200 and S2300 SANs, enabling faster time to value. SAN Manager s ease of use precludes the need for a SAN administrator and enables generalized IT administrators to comfortably manage the S2200 and S3200. Lenovo SAN Manager provides convenient out-of-band administration, including: Web Interface Browser-based, no need for 3 rd party plug-ins Command Line Interface Including Telnet, SSH, USB HTTP Scripting Interface Enables XML Content Encoding
Lenovo SAN Manager is freely provided with S2200/S3200 SAN arrays and provides the following powerful features: Data Tiering Policy based automatic data movement between performance layers Storage Pooling Automated pooling simplifies storage setup Rapid RAID Rebuild Minimizes recovery time and risk factors with rapid data restoration Thin Provisioning / Protection Optimize efficiency with available space Large LUNs Size of the volume is not limited by a traditional RAID set; up to 128TB Read Caching Accelerate workloads using flash technology Live Volume Snapshots Point-in-time copies of live data with no need to restore and no performance hit USE CASE Lenovo ThinkServer RD450 Boasting up to two of the latest Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 processors and up to 512GB of memory, the RD450 is ideal for a ROBO virtualization solution. Next-generation DDR4 memory enables a 50-percent boost in performance and up to a 50-percent boost increase in power savings enabling applications to run faster and more efficiently. Microsoft Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V The built-in virtual capabilities of Windows Server provide ROBO customers with a familiar interface, ease of management and robust performance. The Hyper-V role of Windows Server 2012 R2 virtualizes hardware to provide an environment that supports multiple OS s at the same time on one physical computer; running each OS on its own virtual machine (VM). Server 2012 R2 enables IT to easily create and manage a virtualized computing environment. The backup and replication capabilities of Hyper-V can be used to provide business continuity. Microsoft System Center Operations Manager With the addition of Microsoft System Center, ROBO IT groups can build cloud elasticity, management and scalability into their environment using automation, resource pooling and dynamic provisioning. Microsoft System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) provides end-to-end management of the environment. SCOM enables organizations to monitor services, devices and operations for many computers in a single console. IT can gain insight by using numerous views that show state, health and performance metrics. SCOM also generates alerts, providing notification for availability, performance, configuration and security situations. Call to Action Deploying a Microsoft Hyper-V Private Cloud on Lenovo servers and S2200 SAN is the ideal ROBO solution for consolidating disparate hardware and providing always-on application availability. For more information, visit www.lenovo.com or contact your Lenovo Business Partner.
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