NSMS Virtualisation Services

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NSMS Virtualisation Services

• Jon Hutchings
• Senior Systems Administrator Virtualisation
  Specialist
• http//www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/nsms/
• nsms_at_oucs.ox.ac.uk
• Tel [phone]

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NSMS Introduction

• Who we are
• NSMS are a team of 10 IT professionals
• Part of OUCS
• What we do
• Provide a wide range of chargeable IT services
  aimed specifically at departments, colleges,
  associated institutions and any member of the
  University in need of specific IT services.
• A team with the flexibility to act quickly. We
  aim to bridge the gap between what you want to
  achieve and what your time and resources allow.

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NSMS Introduction

• What services we offer
• File Server Management
• Workstation Management Service
• Advanced Web Hosting
• Request Tracker Service
• Firewall Service
• Security auditing
• Managed Apple OS X Services
• Holiday Cover Service for IT Officers
• Full Economic Costs for Research Projects
• Centralised Purchasing
• Virtualisation

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NSMS Virtualisation Services

• Virtualisation services
• VM for Rent Service
• Virtualisation Services
• Virtual Infrastructure Consultancy and
  Management
• VMware Emergency Support Service
• ESX Patch Depot

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NSMS Virtualised Services

• NSMS virtualisation services based on VMware ESX
  3.5 an enterprise class product
• NSMS VMware infrastructure maintained on two
  blade systems at OUCS running
• Many departmental file servers
• All hosted web sites
• Request Tracker service
• Shared Calendar service
• Development and test systems

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VMware ESX

• Currently on version 3.5
• Enterprise level product
• Runs on bare metal it is an OS in itself
• Best return of VMs per core, twice that of VMware
  server
• Linux, Windows, Netware, FreeBSD and Solaris
  guests supported
• Separate advanced management system Virtual
  Center
• Advanced features such as templates, VMotion,
  high availability (HA) and automated load
  balancing (DRS)
• Provides highly configurable virtual switch
  network infrastructure (traffic shaping, load
  balancing, internal networks, VLAN)

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Cool Features of VI3.5

• VI3.5 refers to the combination of ESX3.5 and
  Virtual Center 2.5
• This provides
• Vmotion/Storage VMotion
• DRS load balancing
• Distributed Power Management (DPM)
• HA failover and VM service monitoring
• Virtual Machine template deployment
• Ability to cloneVMs either hot or cold

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VMotion

• What is VMotion?
• Live migration of a VM from one ESX host to
  another with no downtime
• Benefits
• Zero downtime hardware maintenance
• Applicable to all guest Oses
• Provides basis for VM load balancing
• Requirements
• Shared storage (SAN, iSCSI, NFS)
• Source and target CPU type must be almost
  identical

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DRS

• What is DRS?
• The Dynamic Resource Scheduler
• Automated load balancing of VMs across 2-32 ESX
  hosts
• Benefits
• Maximise efficiency of hosts
• Automatically place VMs on the most appropriate
  host on power-on
• Can be set to manual mode (recommendations only)
  if required
• Individual VMs can be excluded
• Requirements
• VMotion requirements must be met
• Virtual Centre is required

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HA

• What is HA?
• VMware's answer to High Availability
• Automatic restart of VMs on alternative hosts in
  the event of physical server failure
• Benefits
• Provide resiliency against unplanned downtime
  without the need for passive hardware
• No user input required for VM restart process
• Restart priority/behaviour can be set per VM
• Easy to configure
• Individual VMs can be excluded
• Current Limitations
• VMs are rebooted
• Target hosts selected alphabetically rather than
  best placement by available resources
• DRS left to clean up the aftermath

X
Resource Pool

• Requirements
• Shared storage
• Virtual Centre is required to configure HA but
  not for its operation

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Virtualisation Services

• Designed to assist University units in the
  virtualisation of their IT infrastructure.
• Designed to be modular in what it offers - based
  around a three stage process with a three tiered
  solution.

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Virtualisation Services

• Three stages in the process
• Planning
• Implementation (hosted or h/w solutions)
• Maintenance
• Three tiers of solutions
• Bronze (typically suitable for a project,
  section team or small research unit - 1 - 10
  servers)
• Silver (typically for small department, college
  or sub faculty 10 - 50 servers or small VDI
  implementation)
• Gold (ideal for large department, college or
  faculty unit 50 servers or large VDI
  implementation)

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VMware Consultancy
The NSMS Team can provide comprehensive and
expert advice on installation, configuration, and
ongoing administration of VMware solutions. This
service is available to University departments
and Colleges. Additionally the NSMS Team can
fully manage new or existing VMware
installations. Members of the NSMS team are
recognised and respected members of the VMware
community worldwide. They have already been
involved in major VMware projects, offering their
services to more than 20 University departments
and colleges. Phone x73209 or email the NSMS
Team at nsms_at_oucs.ox.ac.uk for a no-obligation
discussion on how we can help you.
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Emergency Support

• Problems in a virtual environment (VMware and
  storage management) can be much greater than in a
  non-virtual environment
• NSMS provides an emergency support service,
  designed to provide prompt access to the VMware
  support team within NSMS

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Emergency Support

• 4hr maximum response commitment to requests for
  assistance on VMware problems
• Maximum of 4 hours of support time per year,
  including on-site and off-site support, for
  example, liaising with VMware support

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VM4Rent

• Fast access to a virtual machine running a server
  OS any one of Windows 2003 Server, Linux (Red
  Hat, SUSE, or Debian), or NetWare 6.5.
• Short, medium or long term rental
• Customer has full management responsibility for
  the server
• NSMS responsible only for management of the
  VMware ESX virtual machine environment
• Extensions to the basic resources of a rented
  server are readily available, e.g. larger disk
  storage requirements
• Apply for a VM to rent by completing an online
  form

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ESX patch Depot

• FREE "Patch Depot" for administrators of VMware
  ESX v3.x.
• Allows simplified updating of ESX hosts via FTP
  for those who cant or dont want to use VMwares
  Update Manager software
• Contact NSMS for details and access

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Case Study

• BSP/ICT Virtual Infrastructure Project
• Requirements
• Highly available services
• Minimum single points of failure
• Resilient storage configuration
• Resilient against total site failure
• Large resource pool
• Design
• 14 dual quad-core Xeon Dell 1950III servers with
  32GB of RAM
• Two 10GB dedicated fibre links between OUCS and
  The Beach
• Ten LHN iSCSI SAN nodes providing 18Tb raw 15k
  SAS storage
• Synchronous cross-site storage replication for
  data integrity
• VI3.5 Enterprise for cross-site VMotion and High
  Availability
• Redundant links to Oxford WAN utilising STP
• Redundant network hardware utilising 2 x Cisco
  Catalyst Stacks
• Redundant bridging firewalls at both sites

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BSP/ICTVirtual Infrastructure Project
Storage Farm
Storage Farm
Dedicated dual 10GB fibre links
ESX Server Farm
ESX Server Farm
OUCS Machine Room
The Beach
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QA

• Any questions?