Technical Workshop Implementing VSPEX in a private cloud

Geoffrey McGowan Solutions Architect at Comsys Specialising in Virtualised high complexity environments Introduction

Introduction to the Environment Medical Imaging Customer based in Ireland Main Sites in Dublin Provides centralised image datastore for multiple clinics and hospitals Requirement to meet stringent ISO certifications for data practices and data retention

Customers Requirements Move to a completely virtualised environment Virtualise mission critical General Electric Centricity RISi application Increase redundancy and RTO for mission critical General Electric Centricity RISi application Build a modular SAN environment which would form the basis of a new virtualised environment to replace the current physical environment. Reduced RTO for critical backup restores

Customers roadblocks Highly complex application General Electric Centricity RISi with stringent set of requirements. First time that the General Electric Centricity RISi application would be virtualised in Ireland Due to mission critical requirements, multiple vendor support cases had been an issue in the past (Support Ping-Pong) Limited budget Small amount of dedicated specialised IT staff Short window for project completion

Comsys Proposed Solution 4 Phase approach Phase 1 - Design Phase 2 – Proof of Concept Phase 3 – Implementation Phase 4 – Go live

Phase I Design

Phase I – Design steps Initial Workshop with customer to details required Service levels, RPO/RTO, growth levels, support requirements and datacentre constraints if any. Design call with GE RISi architects to ascertain software requirements and possible Caveats with it running in a virtualised environment. Create a design using the VSPEX approved framework. Create service offering with SPoC for all hardware components, eliminating “support Ping Pong” Create and document final design, present to customer and GE architects for final approval

Phase I – Design overview Compute – Customer has existing HP estate, so Comsys recommended 2 x HP DL380 G7 servers in HA cluster. Storage– The customer would like future expansion, as well as high performance disk. Comsys recommended a VNX 5100 SAN with redundant Brocade 300B switches. Software- Comsys recommended VMWare Essentials Plus to virtualise this workload. Backup – Comsys recommended 2 x Data Domain DD160 Appliances for backup. These would be replicated between sites for high availability.

Phase II Proof of Concept

Phase II Description – Proof of Concept Establish Test criteria and sign off requirements Create Project Plan Implement demo equipment Do Live P2V of running GE RISi instance to create test image Do online out of hours data copy utilising PowerPath Migration Enabler. Engage GE to do testing of virtual instance. Finalise Proof of Concept

Phase III Solution Implementation

Phase III Description – Implementation Final Site survey Rack and Stack of all equipment Installation and configuration, including VaaI and VaSA enablers. Stress test of environment and final sign off by all parties Dial home and reporting setup. DataDomain backup and replication policies configured.

Phase IV

Phase IV Description – Go Live Full RISi application shutdown Final synchronisation of data Final testing of virtual machines Physical shutdown of RISi servers. Moving all virtual machines to production VMNetwork. Final testing of access to environment. First backup of environment and confirmation of replication.

Project Overview Move from physical to virtual environment, increasing uptime, decreasing physical footprint and management over head Solution is a certified VSPEX solution, allowing for single point of support through Comsys, who in turn utilise support agreements EMC have in place with major vendors. Ability to quickly scale solution to encompass rest of the environment while keeping complexity and support costs down