|
|
Home » Services » Special Projects » Blades and Virtualization
Server Consolidation & Virtualization Solutions
Many of our customers require a strategy to better manage their network server assets. Server sprawl, many single purpose dedicated servers, create a network that is expensive to maintain, difficult to manage, and cumbersome to co-locate or replicate to a data center. designDATA proposes a strategic consolidation effort for many of our customers. The following considerations are part of our analysis. Strategic Considerations in Server Replacement / Upgrade
1. Reduce the number of physical servers on the network.
2. Increase performance and utilization on servers.
3. Introduce “data-center smart” technologies.
4. Create a highly redundant environment.
5. Position solutions that scale to disaster recovery.
6. Simplify and standardize network administration duties.
To accomplish these goals designDATA partners with Hewlett Packard in the deployment of blade server systems, fiber channel storage area network (SAN), and with VMware to utilize their enterprise proven virtualization technology. The combination of these products forms a solution that accomplishes the aforementioned goals. Implementation offers several different options.
Traditional Local Boot Option
Each blade server supports two pluggable SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) disk drives. We configure each blade with two drives connected to an array controller in a RAID-1 (mirrored) configuration. The operating system boots from local disk and makes use of the SAN for network storage. designDATA considers this the “legacy” configuration method.
Advantages to Local Blade OS Boot
• Simple to setup servers - as they are provisioned just like traditional servers.
• Can make use of entry-level SAN, thereby saving money. Since the OS is local to the blade, the performance of a higher-end enterprise SAN is not necessarily required.
Disadvantages to Local Blade OS Boot
• With local drives, we lose the ability to treat servers like appliances and reduce system recovery time.
• Server consolidation, resource pooling and management capabilities are somewhat limited.
• Automation of disaster recovery solutions is not fully leveraged.
Boot from SAN Option
In this scenario the operating system is installed on the SAN. Every blade server will require one pluggable disk drive for local Windows pagefile.
Advantages to Boot from SAN
• Simplifies setup with all data residing on SAN.
• Treats servers like appliances. In this scenario, you could have one “warm” blade in a standby scenario. If any production blades were to fail, the warm blade would be pointed to the area on the SAN of the failed blade. After a reboot, the warm blade takes the place of its failed counterpart.
• Recover from any server failure quickly.
Disadvantages to Boot from SAN
• Server consolidation, resource pooling and management capabilities are somewhat limited.
• Automation of disaster recovery solutions is not fully leveraged.
• Expense of high-end SAN.
VMware Infrastructure 3 Enterprise Option
Building on “Boot from SAN”, VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) allows multiple “virtual” sessions of Windows server running on a single server. This technology works with the operating system installed on the SAN. VI3 has a number of technologies that clearly lead us towards our mutual strategic goals. VI3 has the capability of splitting the load of virtual servers across multiple blade servers for maximum performance, and for real-time failover capacity. It’s the industry leading solution that combines server availability, performance, and consolidation. |
|
 |
|
