1. Information Technology Virtualized Server Update
Scott Baily, ACNS
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

2. Proposal One (Dec. 2010)
Replace 10 (two generations old) IBM servers with 2 current generation IBM servers
Possible by using “Virtual Machine” technology
Original proposal cost estimate: $128K
What These Servers Do
Aries SIS test and development
Tivoli file backup and restore services
Used for virtually all centrally managed systems
Other misc. central IT service
-Talk to you in December about planned project to replace several older servers with two new boxes deployed in a clustered format and using virtualization to maximize the investment by reducing environmental costs, maint costs while providing an exponential improvement in processor capacity
-The systems being upgraded in this project support several areas used by students and used to support the ARIES SIS
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

3. This Proposal was Approved
Provost funded $64K
Central IT (IS and ACNS) funded $54K
UTFAB funded $10K
This project was funded through a partnership
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

4. Second Proposal: Why virtualize only test and development servers?
Test/Dev environments should replicate, to the extent possible, the production systems they shadow
Benefits of virtualization certainly apply to production systems as well
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

5. Second Proposal, cont’d
Replace 19 (generations-old) IBM servers with four current, very capable servers
84% of these 19 servers support student apps
Application and Database Servers
Other auxiliary services also included
As we begin to plan the upgrade with technical staff the question that kept coming up was why not include production systems in the mix – Originally we were looking at replacing oldest systems
Took a look at what that would mean to replace servers supporting other services as well and re-purposing those systems to continuity planning efforts – so we began looking at the configuration and considered what flexibility it would provide us in going forward and it presented some promising options
So we asked our vendor partners to take another look and recommend a solution to that would allow us to accomplish more
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

6. Second Proposal Cost Estimate
$378K total cost, includes all four servers
$128K already funded
$64K from Provost
$54K from IS/ACNS
$10K from UTFAB
$250K remained unfunded
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

7. Second Funding Request
$150K, In addition to $10K committed in December
$378 project total; UTFAB’s portion is 42.3% of total
84% of systems related to Student Support Applications
Central funding for the balance
$100K IS/ACNS (40%)
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

8. Status Server cluster is up Performance of VMs is excellent
But not without significant challenges!
IBM’s virtual server implementation significantly different than VMWare and Hyper-V
Performance of VMs is excellent
All central servers to be migrated have been upgraded, ready to transition
Simply a matter of scheduling downtime, minimizing impact to student applications
-Hardware and software maintenance w/o considering inflation, so this is a conservation estimate
-The newer hardware is much more energy efficient and virtualization provides an opportunity for energy rebate
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

9. Benefits Better performance Better redundancy
Reduced power and cooling requirement
Hardware maintenance savings
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

10. Questions
Are most welcome
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

11. Storage Proposal
This project was so important, that we focused all of our attention last year on it, now… Server virtualization is great! But, only part of the overall solution…
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

12. The Problem
Significant amount of old storage systems, placing CSU IT at significant risk
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

13. The Problem (Cont’d) Currently, systems have dedicated storage
Management nightmare
Inefficient and inflexible
Disruptive – reconfigurations require downtime (if even possible)
Current disks very expensive to maintain and expand
Incompatible connectivity (fibre channel, iscsi, etc.)
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

14. The Risks 6-7 year old storage is ‘beyond the pale’
Current approach does not provide redundancy in storage as data resides in a single location
need redundancy to protect data and ensure availability
Data backups and restores take too long
ODS Down 2 days recently due to disk issue and restoral time
IS disk issues resulted in 2 day outage (June 2010)
We cannot effectively manage exponential data growth
Failure to do so is not an option!
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

15. Growth Pains RamCT growing 40 GB / month
Nightly “changed” backups have grown to 10TB / night
Space consumption is on a steady and substantial rise
VM as a service to campus likely to require hundreds of additional TB
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

16. The situation today
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

17. The Solution
Install a storage virtualization solution between current storage and servers
Allows current storage to be upgraded over time
Allows on-the-fly expansion with no downtime
Permits data replication (no restoral from backup system)
Facilitates common, standards-based solutions flexible disk management
Similar advantages to server virtualization!
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

18. The Solution (Cont’d)
Virtualizing storage allows management of disparate disk systems as a single pool
Single point of management simplifies administration
Combining storage into one pool allows dynamic movement of data between tiers of storage
If an application suddenly needs more IO performance, this can be accommodated immediately with no downtime
Backups are far faster and more granular, afforded by new capabilities that come with virtualization
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

19. Cost* Software and support: $190K Hardware cost $ 40K
BYO Storage ea) $ 60K
Total $290K
Adds > 300 Tbytes of flexible, robust storage
*Based on documented quote, Oct. 2011
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

20. Proposal
Since ~ 70% of disk in use today supports student-related activities, consider funding 70% of the $290K ($203K)
We will seek central funding for the $87K remainder from the Provost
Central IT is about ‘tapped out’
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011

21. Questions
Are again most welcome
UTFAB Update
November 15, 2011