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Virtual Infrastructure 3 Deployment

Virtual Infrastructure 3 Deployment. A VI3 deployment in a Mid-size Company. About Christie Digital. A leader in visual solutions for business, entertainment and industry Head office for Manufacturing & Operations in Kitchener, ON Head office for Sales & Field Operations in Cypress, CA

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Virtual Infrastructure 3 Deployment

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  1. Virtual Infrastructure 3 Deployment A VI3 deployment in a Mid-size Company

  2. About Christie Digital • A leader in visual solutions for business, entertainment and industry • Head office for Manufacturing & Operations in Kitchener, ON • Head office for Sales & Field Operations in Cypress, CA • Numerous AV Industry Awards; won 2 Oscars for technical achievement

  3. CDS: A good problem to have • Explosive growth: doubled in size in less than 2 years • Global Information Services (GIS) had to quickly adapt to increasing business needs • GIS faced the usual suspects: • Provisioning takes too long • Too many “one application, one box” requests • Proliferation of hardware surpassed server room cooling capacity • Legacy Applications were on older and dying hardware • No time to manage all the requests

  4. GIS Responses to the Business needs • Next IT investment: IBM BladeCenter + SAN • One blade center – 14 blades – for long term growth • 6 months, had to purchase an additional blade center • 6 months, require yet another blade center • Have outgrown our initial blade center architecture and required some additional changes, especially for the SAN • Still had legacy apps on older hardware Just wasn’t enough

  5. VI3: Stop the Madness • Virtual Center – recycled older rack mount hardware • ESX Servers – 2 x IBM Blades, 16 GB RAM, Dual Proc, 4 Core • With shared Storage; created an ESX DRS/HA Cluster • VM Converter – Migrate physical to virtual • ESX Patch Repository – IIS Server • VCB Proxy – Leverage our existing utility Server

  6. Setting up the Hardware • Burn in process for 72 hours using IBM diagnostic tools • Installed ESX manually (only two servers) onto local disk as per: /boot 1000 MB (ext3) swap 544 / 5000 (ext3) /home 5000 (ext3) /tmp 3000 (ext3) /var 3000 (ext3) /vmkcore 110 /vmimages rest of disk

  7. Shared Storage IBM DS 4800 SAN, Created 3 LUNs • 1 LUN ~ 100 GB for Templates & ISO’s on SATA • 2 LUNs ~ 400 GB for VM’s on FC • Each FC LUN has a “primary” ESX server, but both can see the other LUNs for DRS & HA • Left 60-70 GB per LUN for snapshots/backups/etc

  8. esxcfg-auth Authentication • Set up NTP • Modifying the “wheel” local group using visudo • Added local users to the wheel account • Connected with VI Client and gave wheel group admin access

  9. esxupdate -n -r http://IIS/patch# Patching • Over 20 ESX 3.01 patches have been released • Created IIS repository as per: http://virtrix.blogspot.com/2007/03/vmware-autopatching-your-esx-host.html

  10. Networking Each machine had 4 NICs • 1 NIC for service console • Debated about putting into a management VLAN • 1 NIC for vmkernel (for Vmotion) • 2 NICS, load balanced for VM Network configured from within Virtual Center

  11. Current Method Un-box, rack and cable Configure hardware If blade, configure SAN Walk through vender Server Config Guide Install Operating System Install Patches Configure server for GIS “standards” Using VMware Right-click template, select “create new virtual machine” Wait for file copy Adjust machine settings as appropriate “Instant” Provisioning Assuming hardware is available, deployment takes approximately 1 business day Assuming capacity is available, deployment takes approximately 10-20 minutes

  12. VM Provisioning Process • Created optimized template; excess services uninstalled • http://download3.vmware.com/vmworld/2006/mdc9700.pdf • 5 GB Template file, used vmkfstools –X to expand • When VM boots, use ISO “gparted”: • http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=173828 • Have syprep installed on the Windows image; use “sys-unconfig” for Red Hat (ish) installs

  13. Convincing the Powers that be • Three pronged approach to getting approval • Get influential techies on your side • Leverage any publicly announced environment policies • Play dirty; talk about money

  14. VMware Server – A solution to Dev Machines “Virtual Lab in a box” • Semi-powerful desktop • 4 GB of RAM, Dual-Core CPU, RAID Controller, extra NIC • Use Linux OS (Red Hat, CentOS, etc) as it has a smaller footprint than Windows; use NoMachine for remote admin • Install VMware Server (free!), • VM Converter to move templates and VM’s back and forth

  15. Reducing the Carbon Footprint • CDS ISO 14001 Certified “Environmental Management System Policy” • VI3 has considerable impact on GIS’s positive contribution to the Policy VI3 can: • Reduce the amount of physical hardware (and thus raw materials) • Reduce energy consumption to power servers • Reduce cooling requirements, and thus energy consumption “We are fully committed to environmental solutions …and to meet or exceed applicable environmental laws, regulations and organizational objectives.”

  16. Return on Investment • In the 2 quarters, 11 known projects that require a server Options: • Still have to add in cost for a blade chassis @ $30 K • VMware Infrastructure 3 Investment = $51 K • Plus still have the capacity for 11 more virtual machines!

  17. Lesson’s Learned • Leverage your VMware Rep! • Read the fine print… • VCB is a “backup framework”, not a backup solution

  18. A Windows VMware Admin (free) Tool set • Putty – required for ssh access to the service console OS • WinSCP – A GUI scp client to move files (mainly ISO) to and from ESX servers • Veeam FastSCP – another GUI scp client, but infinitely faster than WinSCP • http://www.veeam.com/veeam_fast_scp.asp • No Machine – a “RDP” client that easily allow X-windows access to Linux boxes through ssh • http://www.nomachine.com/

  19. Recommended Reading • RapidApp's Quick Start guide to ESX 3.0 http://www.lulu.com/content/712361 • VI3 book; includes free Advance Design 2.5 Guide download http://www.vi3book.com/ • Mega-link post in user forums http://www.vmware.com/community/thread.jspa?threadID=81191&start=0&tstart=0

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