EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation SDDC Edition: Microsoft Applications Solution Guide

Solution Guide

EMC ENTERPRISE HYBRID CLOUD 2.5.1, FEDERATION SOFTWARE-DEFINED DATA CENTER EDITION Microsoft Applications Solution Guide

EMC Solutions

Abstract

This Solution Guide describes how to use EMC® Enterprise Hybrid Cloud™ 2.5.1 to provision and manage new and existing Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft SharePoint applications for on-premises or hosted cloud services.

December 2014

Copyright © 2014 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA.

Published December 2014

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EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition: Microsoft Applications Solution Guide

Part Number H13560

2 EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition: Microsoft Applications Solution Guide

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Contents

Contents

Chapter 1 Executive Summary 11 Document purpose ................................................................................................... 12 Audience .................................................................................................................. 12 Solution purpose ...................................................................................................... 13 Business challenge .................................................................................................. 13 Technology solution ................................................................................................. 14 Terminology.............................................................................................................. 14

Chapter 2 EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution Overview 17 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 18 Self-service and automation ..................................................................................... 19 Multitenancy and secure separation ......................................................................... 21 Workload-optimized storage ..................................................................................... 22 Security and compliance .......................................................................................... 22 Monitoring and service assurance ............................................................................ 23 Modular add-on components ................................................................................... 24

Chapter 3 Microsoft Applications Solution Architecture 27 Overview .................................................................................................................. 28 Key components ....................................................................................................... 29

Data center virtualization and cloud management ............................................... 29 EMC storage services ........................................................................................... 31

Software resources ................................................................................................... 32

Chapter 4 Provisioning Microsoft Applications 33 Overview .................................................................................................................. 34 VMware vCAC Application Services ........................................................................... 35

VMware Cloud Management Marketplace ............................................................ 35 Cloud providers ................................................................................................... 35 Deployment environments ................................................................................... 37 Application owners and business groups ............................................................. 38 Logical templates ................................................................................................ 38 vCAC Application Services ................................................................................... 38 Application blueprints ......................................................................................... 39

Publishing application blueprints ............................................................................. 40


Contents

Service Catalog ......................................................................................................... 43 Services ............................................................................................................... 44 Catalog items....................................................................................................... 44 Actions ................................................................................................................ 44 Entitlements ........................................................................................................ 45

Approval policies ...................................................................................................... 45 Storage tiering .......................................................................................................... 46 Provisioning Microsoft Active Directory services ....................................................... 48 Provisioning Microsoft Exchange .............................................................................. 49

Exchange Server application blueprints ............................................................... 50 Additional services .............................................................................................. 51 Publishing a stand-alone Exchange Server ........................................................... 51 Requesting Exchange Server from the vCAC catalog ............................................. 52 Validating an Exchange Server deployment.......................................................... 54

Provisioning Microsoft SQL Server ............................................................................ 55 Anti-affinity rules for SQL Server virtual machines ................................................ 55 SQL Server application blueprints ........................................................................ 56 Additional services .............................................................................................. 57 Requesting a SQL Server ...................................................................................... 57 Approving a request ............................................................................................. 59 Validating a SQL Server deployment .................................................................... 59

Provisioning Microsoft SharePoint ............................................................................ 60 Provisioning SharePoint 2010 .............................................................................. 60 Provisioning SharePoint 2013 .............................................................................. 67

Chapter 5 High Availability for Microsoft Applications on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 69

Overview .................................................................................................................. 70 High availability ....................................................................................................... 70 Microsoft Exchange DAG ........................................................................................... 70

vSphere HA with Exchange DAGs ......................................................................... 71 vSphere DRS with Exchange DAG ......................................................................... 71 Anti-Affinity rules for Exchange virtual machines .................................................. 71 Provisioning an Exchange DAG ............................................................................. 72

Microsoft SQL Server with AlwaysOn Availability Groups .......................................... 75 Provisioning SQL Server 2012 AAG ...................................................................... 75 vCAC Application Services blueprint for SQL Server AAG ...................................... 75 Verifying the SQL Server 2012 AAG deployment ................................................... 77

Microsoft SharePoint availability .............................................................................. 78


Contents

Chapter 6 Monitoring Microsoft Applications 81 Overview .................................................................................................................. 82 VMware vCenter Hyperic ........................................................................................... 82

Supported versions ............................................................................................. 83 vCenter Hyperic agent .......................................................................................... 83 Auto-Discovery..................................................................................................... 84

VMware vCenter Operations Manager ....................................................................... 84 vC OPS integration with Hyperic ........................................................................... 85

Monitoring Microsoft Exchange ................................................................................ 88 Exchange 2013 Metrics ........................................................................................ 89 Microsoft Exchange dashboards .......................................................................... 90

Monitoring Microsoft SQL Server .............................................................................. 91 SQL Server metrics ............................................................................................... 91 SQL Server dashboards ....................................................................................... 93

Monitoring Microsoft SharePoint .............................................................................. 95 SharePoint server metrics .................................................................................... 95 SharePoint dashboards ....................................................................................... 96

Chapter 7 Elasticity for Microsoft Applications 99 Overview ................................................................................................................ 100 Threshold alerts ..................................................................................................... 100

Email notification ............................................................................................... 101 Elasticity for Microsoft Exchange ............................................................................ 101 Elasticity for Microsoft SQL Server .......................................................................... 104 Elasticity for Microsoft SharePoint .......................................................................... 105

SharePoint 2010 ................................................................................................ 106 SharePoint 2013 ................................................................................................ 111

Chapter 8 Conclusion 115 Summary ................................................................................................................ 116 Findings ................................................................................................................. 116

Chapter 9 References 117 EMC documentation ............................................................................................... 118 VMware documentation .......................................................................................... 118 Microsoft documentation ....................................................................................... 118


Contents

Figures Figure 1. EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud components ........................................... 19 Figure 2. Self-service provisioning through the vCAC portal ................................ 20 Figure 3. Sample Microsoft application dashboard ............................................ 23 Figure 4. EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud reference architecture ............................ 28 Figure 5. Workflow for publishing a vCAC Application Services blueprint ........... 34 Figure 6. VMware Solutions Exchange Marketplace blueprints samples ............. 35 Figure 7. Adding a cloud provider ...................................................................... 36 Figure 8. vCAC blueprints and logical templates added to a cloud provider ........ 36 Figure 9. Setting build information for a vCAC cloud blueprint ............................ 37 Figure 10. Deployment Environment .................................................................... 37 Figure 11. Adding a service created on vCAC Application Services ....................... 38 Figure 12. Creating an application blueprint ........................................................ 39 Figure 13. Drag and drop GUI in vCloud Application Manager ............................... 40 Figure 14. Publishing application blueprints to vCAC ........................................... 40 Figure 15. Mapping details during blueprint deployment/publishing process ...... 41 Figure 16. Using the overridable option for an application parameter .................. 41 Figure 17. Deployment Execution Plan ................................................................. 42 Figure 18. Reviewing and publishing the application blueprint to the vCAC

catalog ................................................................................................ 42 Figure 19. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog ........................................................ 43 Figure 20. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog for SQL Server 2012 ........................ 43 Figure 21. Viewing vCAC Services ......................................................................... 44 Figure 22. Managing vCAC Catalog Items ............................................................. 44 Figure 23. Viewing vCAC actions .......................................................................... 45 Figure 24. Viewing vCAC Entitlements .................................................................. 45 Figure 25. Approving or rejecting a request .......................................................... 46 Figure 26. Selecting a storage tier ........................................................................ 46 Figure 27. Selecting a storage tier for SQL Server in vCAC ..................................... 47 Figure 28. Provisioning Microsoft Active Directory from vCAC ............................... 48 Figure 29. Properties and actions for Exchange 2013 blueprint ............................ 50 Figure 30. Selecting a stand-alone Exchange 2013 blueprint ............................... 51 Figure 31. Editing Exchange 2013 blueprint properties ........................................ 52 Figure 32. Editing options for an Exchange 2013 blueprint .................................. 52 Figure 33. Viewing vCAC Service Catalog items for Exchange ............................... 53 Figure 34. Viewing vCAC application parameters for Exchange Server .................. 53 Figure 35. Confirming a successful Exchange Server deployment ......................... 54 Figure 36. Viewing a provisioned application for Exchange Server ....................... 54


Contents

Figure 37. Exchange admin center: newly deployed Exchange Server verification .......................................................................................... 55

Figure 38. Viewing properties and actions for a SQL Server application blueprint deployment .......................................................................... 56

Figure 39. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog for SQL Server ................................. 58 Figure 40. Viewing vCAC application properties for SQL Server ............................. 58 Figure 41. Viewing Pending Approval of vCAC requests for SQL Server ................. 59 Figure 42. Confirming a successful SQL Server deployment ................................. 59 Figure 43. Viewing a provisioned application ....................................................... 59 Figure 44. Example of a completed SQL Server deployment ................................. 60 Figure 45. vCAC Application Services SharePoint blueprints available for

deployment ......................................................................................... 61 Figure 46. vCAC Application Services for SharePoint deployments ....................... 61 Figure 47. vCAC Application Services application blueprint for SharePoint ........... 62 Figure 48. SharePoint service types, templates, and services for the vCAC

blueprint ............................................................................................. 62 Figure 49. vCAC Application Services service properties for a SharePoint

blueprint ............................................................................................. 63 Figure 50. Viewing SharePoint service catalog selections in the vCAC Service

Catalog ................................................................................................ 64 Figure 51. Adding information for a SharePoint deployment request .................... 64 Figure 52. Changing service options for a SharePoint deployment ....................... 64 Figure 53. Viewing deployed SharePoint virtual machine in vCAC ......................... 65 Figure 54. SharePoint farm deployment information ............................................ 66 Figure 55. Selecting a SharePoint template .......................................................... 66 Figure 56. Deploying a SharePoint 2013 blueprint from vCAC Application

Services .............................................................................................. 67 Figure 57. Viewing vCAC Catalog items for SharePoint 2013 ................................ 67 Figure 58. Viewing a successful SharePoint 2013 deployment ............................. 68 Figure 59. Configuring a new SharePoint farm for HR ............................................ 68 Figure 60. Anti-Affinity DRS rule for Exchange DAG servers ................................... 72 Figure 61. Selecting an Exchange server blueprint from Applications ................... 73 Figure 62. Viewing the application blueprint for an Exchange 2013 DAG .............. 73 Figure 63. Submitting a blueprint for deployment ................................................ 74 Figure 64. Selecting and deploying the Exchange DAG template in the vCAC

catalog ................................................................................................ 74 Figure 65. Viewing the SQL Server AAG catalog items in vCAC .............................. 75 Figure 66. Viewing the AAG application blueprint ................................................. 76 Figure 67. Viewing the AAG application blueprint description .............................. 76 Figure 68. Viewing AAG service dependencies ..................................................... 77 Figure 69. Reviewing the task execution workflow for AAG ................................... 77


Contents

Figure 70. Viewing the deployed availability replicas in SQL Server Management Studio ............................................................................ 78

Figure 71. SharePoint virtual machine protection by vSphere HA ......................... 79 Figure 72. vCenter Hyperic Plugin Manager .......................................................... 82 Figure 73. Adding the Hyperic Service on vCAC Application Services .................... 83 Figure 74. Auto-Discovery window on vCenter Hyperic ......................................... 84 Figure 75. vC Ops custom UI ................................................................................ 85 Figure 76. Installing and configuring the Hyperic Management Pack .................... 86 Figure 77. Confirming the Management Pack for Hyperic is listed......................... 87 Figure 78. Managing adapter instances ............................................................... 87 Figure 79. Adding and setting up the Hyperic Adapter Instance ............................ 88 Figure 80. Sample metrics in Hyperic ................................................................... 89 Figure 81. Sample Exchange attribute package .................................................... 90 Figure 82. Exchange dashboard ........................................................................... 91 Figure 83. Managing attribute packages .............................................................. 92 Figure 84. Viewing SQL Server Resource Details ................................................... 93 Figure 85. Customizing a SQL Server dashboard .................................................. 94 Figure 86. Customized SQL Server customized dashboard ................................... 94 Figure 87. Managing attribute packages for SharePoint ....................................... 95 Figure 88. Viewing SharePoint Resource Details................................................... 96 Figure 89. Creating a custom SharePoint dashboard ............................................ 97 Figure 90. Customized SharePoint dashboard ..................................................... 97 Figure 91. Alerts Overview.................................................................................. 100 Figure 92. Configuring an alert ........................................................................... 101 Figure 93. Blueprint for Exchange 2013 DAG expansion ..................................... 102 Figure 94. Exchange 2013 DAG expansion blueprint Services ............................ 102 Figure 95. vCAC Exchange DAG expansion request information and

description ........................................................................................ 103 Figure 96. vCAC Exchange DAG expansion properties......................................... 103 Figure 97. Deployment configuration properties for Exchange DAG expansion ... 104 Figure 98. SQL Server alert ................................................................................. 104 Figure 99. Editing CPU resources for SQL Server ................................................. 105 Figure 100. CPU usage for SharePoint WFE in vC Ops ........................................... 106 Figure 101. SharePoint application blueprint ....................................................... 106 Figure 102. SharePoint Application blueprint properties and actions ................... 107 Figure 103. SharePoint 2010 WFE selection from the vCAC catalog ...................... 107 Figure 104. SharePoint 2010 request information ................................................ 108 Figure 105. SharePoint 2010 request properties .................................................. 108 Figure 106. Provisioned SharePoint 2010 virtual machines in vCAC ..................... 109


Contents

Figure 107. SharePoint 2010 Farm information .................................................... 109 Figure 108. Options for virtual machines in vCAC ................................................. 110 Figure 109. Destroying virtual machine confirmation options in vCAC .................. 111 Figure 110. SharePoint 2013 WFE selection from the vCAC catalog ...................... 111 Figure 111. SharePoint 2013 request information and properties ........................ 112 Figure 112. SharePoint 2013 Farm information .................................................... 113

Tables Table 1. Terminology......................................................................................... 14 Table 2. Solution software requirements ........................................................... 32 Table 3. Exchange 2013 blueprint property values ........................................... 51 Table 4. SQL Server blueprint property values ................................................... 57 Table 5. SharePoint blueprint property values................................................... 63 Table 6. Exchange DAG blueprint property values ............................................. 73 Table 7. Exchange DAG expansion blueprint property values .......................... 102


Contents


Chapter 1: Executive Summary

Chapter 1 Executive Summary

This chapter presents the following topics:

Document purpose ................................................................................................... 12

Audience .................................................................................................................. 12

Solution purpose...................................................................................................... 13

Business challenge .................................................................................................. 13

Technology solution ................................................................................................. 14

Terminology ............................................................................................................. 14



Document purpose

This Solution Guide describes how to deploy and manage Microsoft applications, such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft SharePoint, within EMC® Enterprise Hybrid Cloud™ built with VMware vCloud Suite. The guide introduces the main features and functionality of the solution, the solution architecture and key components, and the validated hardware and software environment. It also demonstrates the use cases enabled by the solution.

This EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud for Microsoft Applications solution is a modular add-on to the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution. The following documents describe the reference architecture and the foundation solution on which all EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud add-on solutions are built:

• EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition: Foundation Infrastructure Reference Architecture

• EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition: Foundation Infrastructure Solution Guide

The following guides provide further information about how to implement specific capabilities or enable specific use cases within the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution:

• EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition: Data Protection Continuous Availability Solution Guide

• EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition: Data Protection Backup Solution Guide

• EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition: Data Protection Disaster Recovery Solution Guide

• EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Hadoop Applications Solution Guide

• EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Pivotal CF Platform as a Service Solution Guide

• EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Security Management Solution Guide

• EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 with VMware: Public Cloud Solution Guide

Audience

This guide is intended for EMC customers and qualified EMC partners. The guide assumes that users who intend to deploy this solution have the necessary training and background to install and configure an end-user computing solution based on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1 Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition, Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint, and the associated infrastructure. Users should also be familiar with the infrastructure and database security policies of the customer installation.

This guide provides external references where applicable. EMC recommends that users implementing this solution are familiar with these documents. For details, refer to Chapter 9: References.



Solution purpose

This solution enables EMC customers to build an enterprise-class, scalable, multitenant cloud that enables:

• Complete management of the infrastructure service lifecycle

• On-demand access to and control of network bandwidth, servers, storage, and security

• Provisioning, monitoring, and management of the infrastructure services by the line-of-business end user, without IT administrator involvement

• Provisioning of application blueprints with associated infrastructure resources by line-of-business application owners without IT administrator involvement

• Maximization of asset utilization

This solution provides a reference architecture that integrates all the key components and functionality of a hybrid cloud.

Business challenge

Business applications are becoming more integrated into a consolidated compute, network, and storage environment. Every organization is trying to:

• Lower operational costs

• Increase revenue

• Reduce risk

While many organizations have successfully introduced virtualization as a core technology within their data center, the benefits of virtualization have largely been restricted to the IT infrastructure owners. End users and business units within customer organizations have not experienced the benefits of virtualization, such as increased agility, mobility, and control.

Transforming the traditional IT model to a cloud-operating model involves overcoming the challenges of legacy infrastructure and processes, such as:

• Inefficiency and inflexibility

• Slow, reactive responses to customer requests

• Inadequate visibility into the cost of the requested infrastructure

• Limited choice of availability and protection services

The difficulty in overcoming these challenges has given rise to public cloud providers who have built technology and business models specifically catering to the requirements of end-user agility and control. Many organizations are under pressure to provide these same service levels within the secure and compliant confines of the on-premises data center. As a result, IT departments need to create cost-effective alternatives to public cloud services—alternatives that do not compromise enterprise features such as data protection, disaster recovery, and guaranteed service levels.



Technology solution

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution integrates the best of EMC and VMware products and services. The solution empowers IT organizations to accelerate implementation and adoption of a hybrid cloud while still enabling customer choice for the compute and networking infrastructure within the data center. The solution caters both to customers who want to preserve their investment and make better use of their existing infrastructure and to customers who want to build out new infrastructures dedicated to a hybrid cloud.

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution, developed by EMC and VMware product and services teams, takes advantage of the strong integration between EMC technologies and the VMware vCloud Suite. The solution includes EMC scalable storage arrays, integrated EMC and VMware monitoring, and data protection suites to provide a foundation for cloud services within customer environments.

This Microsoft Applications solution adds VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services and VMware vCenter Hyperic to the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud foundation architecture to enable automated deployment and management of Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft SharePoint, and to enable application monitoring during the application lifecycle.

Terminology

Table 1 provides definitions for some of the terms used in this guide.

Table 1. Terminology

Term Definition

Active Directory (AD) Provided with Microsoft Windows Server as a special-purpose database or directory that is designed to store system-specific data for handling a large number of read and search operations, which are hierarchical, replicated, and extensible.

AlwaysOn Availability Group (AAG)

A high-availability and disaster-recovery feature included with SQL Server as an enterprise-level alternative to database mirroring.

Application blueprint Logical topology of an application for deployment in a virtual cloud. An application blueprint captures the structure of an application with logical nodes, their corresponding services and operating systems, dependencies, default configurations, and network and storage topology requirements. The blueprint is published as a catalog item in the common service catalog.

Backup as a service (BaaS)

Uses a cloud infrastructure to backup data to a shared, rather than a dedicated, backup infrastructure.

Business group A set of users, often corresponding to a line of business, department, or other organizational unit, that can be associated with a set of catalog services and infrastructure resources.



Term Definition

Database availability group (DAG)

A set of highly available Microsoft Exchange Mailbox servers that host a set of databases and provides automatic database-level recovery from failures that affect individual servers or databases.

High availability (HA) Enables a system or infrastructure to continue to provide applications and access to data if a single component or resource fails and service is interrupted for only a brief time, which might or might not be apparent to users.

Infrastructure as a service (IaaS)

A standard set of automated resources that include compute, storage, and networking capabilities provided through a hosting company or service provider.

IT as a service (ITaaS) Enterprise IT that acts and operates as a competitive service provider for an organization that has many provider options for IT services, including outsourcing companies and public cloud providers.

Key performance indicator (KPI)

A quantifiable measure that compares performance criteria, including strategic and operational goals of an organization.

Logical template A predefined virtual machine definition in VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services that can be mapped to a cloud template (and supporting services) in the cloud catalog enabling an application blueprint to remain cloud-agnostic.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

A protocol used by an application to communicate securely with another application that provides services.

vCloud Automation Center Application Services properties

VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services configuration name-value pairs for services and application components. These are variables used by scripts to set parameters and run various configurations.

vCloud Automation Center Application Services service

vCloud Automation Center Application Services scripted software that can be installed on a virtual machine and reused in multiple applications.

Virtual local area network (VLAN)

Enables a geographically dispersed network of computers and users to communicate in a simulated environment as if they exist in one LAN and are sharing a single broadcast and multicast domain. VLANs quickly adapt to changes in network requirements and relocation of workstations and server nodes.

Web front-end (WFE) A Web-based user interface for a back-end service such as a database. It is a Web server that handles Web page requests from users. A SharePoint farm can use multiple WFE servers and a Network Load Balancer (NLB) to distribute requests for scalability and redundancy.




Chapter 2: EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution Overview

Chapter 2 EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution Overview


Introduction ............................................................................................................. 18

Self-service and automation .................................................................................... 19

Multitenancy and secure separation ........................................................................ 21

Workload-optimized storage .................................................................................... 22

Security and compliance .......................................................................................... 22

Monitoring and service assurance............................................................................ 23

Modular add-on components ................................................................................... 24



Introduction

EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud is an engineered solution that offers IT organizations, developers, end users, and line-of-business owners with a simplified approach to IT functionality. In addition to delivering baseline IaaS built on a software-defined data center architecture, the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud delivers feature-rich capabilities to expand from IaaS to business-enabling IT as a service (ITaaS). Backup as a service (BaaS) and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) policies can be enabled with just a few clicks. End users and developers can quickly access a marketplace of resources for Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, EMC Syncplicity®, and Pivotal applications, and can add third-party packages as required. Resources can be deployed on private cloud or EMC-powered public cloud services, including VMware vCloud Air.

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution uses the best of EMC and VMware products and services, and takes advantage of the strong integration between EMC and VMware technologies to provide the foundation for enabling IaaS on new and existing infrastructure for the hybrid cloud.

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution includes the following features and functionality:

• Self-service and automation

• Multitenancy and secure separation

• Workload-optimized storage

• Security and compliance

• Monitoring and service assurance

• Modular add-on components

For detailed information, refer to EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition: Foundation Infrastructure Solution Guide. For an overview of EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud modular add-on solutions, which provide functionality such as continuous availability, platform as a service, and disaster recovery, refer to Modular add-on components. For detailed information on the add-on solutions, refer to the individual Solution Guides for those solutions.

Figure 1 shows the key components of the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution. The addition of VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services and VMware vCenter Hyperic to the foundation architecture enables automated deployment and management of Microsoft application deployments.



Figure 1. EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud components

Self-service and automation

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution provides self-service provisioning of automated cloud services to end users and to infrastructure administrators. It uses VMware vCloud Automation Center (vCAC), integrated with EMC ViPR® software-defined storage and VMware vCloud Networking and Security (vCNS) or VMware NSX, to provide the compute, storage, network, and security virtualization platforms for the software-defined data center. These platforms enable you to rapidly deploy and provision business-relevant cloud services across your hybrid cloud and physical infrastructure.

Cloud users can request and manage applications and compute resources within established operational policies; this can reduce IT service delivery times from days or weeks to minutes. Features include:

• Self-service portal—Provides a cross-cloud storefront that delivers a catalog of custom-defined services for provisioning applications based on business and IT policies, as shown in Figure 3

• Role-based entitlements—Ensure that the self-service portal presents only the virtual machine, application, or service blueprints appropriate to a user’s role within the business

• Resource reservations—Allocate resources for use by a specific group and ensure that access is limited to that group



• Service levels—Define the amount and types of resources that a particular service can receive during initial provisioning or as part of configuration changes

• Blueprints—Contain the build specifications and automation policies that specify the process for building or reconfiguring compute resources

Figure 2. Self-service provisioning through the vCAC portal

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution enables businesses to rapidly deploy and provision applications and services to the cloud platform on demand. vCAC enables you to divide a shared infrastructure into logical units and capacities that can be assigned to different business units. Using role-based entitlements, you can choose from your own self-service catalog of custom-defined services and blueprints. Each catalog presents only the virtual machines, applications, and service blueprints that users have permission to view, based on their assigned role within the business.

You can apply data protection policies to virtual machine resources at provisioning time. This enables users to request on-demand backup and restore operations on their virtual machines and to generate backup reports, all from the vCAC self-service portal.

As part of the vCAC provisioning process, you can use NSX virtual routing to provide an on-demand deployment model for creating custom networks that support NSX edge routers and logical switches. This enables you to build a custom configuration as part of a multimachine provisioning process.



The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution is built to work with new and existing infrastructures. It supports the differing requirements of an enterprise’s many business units and integrates with a wide variety of existing IT systems and best practices.

Multitenancy and secure separation

Multitenancy requirements in a cloud environment can range from shared, open resources to completely isolated resources, depending on the organization’s end-user requirements. The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution provides the ability to enforce physical and virtual separation for multitenancy, offering different levels of security to meet business requirements. This separation can encompass network, compute, and storage resources, to ensure appropriate security and performance for each tenant.

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution supports secure multitenancy through vCAC role-based access control (RBAC), which enables vCAC roles to be mapped to Microsoft Active Directory groups. vCAC uses existing authentication and business groupings. The self-service portal shows only the appropriate views, functions, and operations to cloud users, based on their role within the business.

You can use physical resource separation in vCAC to isolate tenant resources or to isolate and contain compute resources for licensing purposes. You can also implement resource separation between and within resource groups, depending on the level of separation required.

Virtualized compute resources within the hybrid cloud are objects inherited from the vSphere endpoint, most commonly representing VMware vSphere ESXi hosts, host clusters, or resource pools. You can configure compute resources at the vSphere layer to ensure physical and logical separation of resources between functional environments such as Production and Test and Development (Test/Dev).

Valid concerns exist for information leakage and “nosy neighbors” on a shared network infrastructure. Consumers of the provisioned resources must operate in a dedicated environment to benefit from infrastructure standardization. To address these concerns, the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution is designed for multitenancy. We1 approached this from a defense-in-depth perspective by:

• Implementing virtual local area networks (VLANs) to enable isolation at Layer 2 in the cloud management pods and where the solution intersects with the physical network

• Using VXLAN overlay networks to segment tenant and business group traffic flows

• Integrating with firewalls functioning at the hypervisor level to protect virtualized applications and enabling security policy enforcement in a consistent fashion throughout the solution

1 In this document, "we" refers to the EMC engineering team that validated the solution.



• Deploying provider and business group edge firewalls to protect the business group and tenant perimeters

Workload-optimized storage

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution enables you to take advantage of the proven benefits of EMC storage in a hybrid cloud environment. Using EMC ViPR storage services and the capabilities of EMC VNX®, EMC Symmetrix® VMAX®, and EMC XtremIO™, the solution enables you to manage the policies of software-defined block- and file-based virtual storage.

With scalable storage architectures that use the latest flash and tiering technologies, VNX, VMAX, and XtremIO storage arrays enable you to meet any workload requirements with maximum efficiency, performance, and cost-effectiveness. ViPR abstracts the storage configuration and presents it as a single storage control point. This enables cloud administrators to access all heterogeneous storage resources within a data center as if they were a single large array.

As a result, storage administrators are able to maintain control of their storage resources and policies while cloud administrator can automatically provision storage resources into the cloud infrastructure.

Security and compliance

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution enables you to enhance security by establishing a hardened security baseline across the hardware and software stacks supporting your hybrid cloud infrastructure. The solution helps to reduce concerns around the complexities of the underlying infrastructure by demonstrating how to tightly integrate an as-a-service solution stack with public key infrastructure (PKI) and a common authentication directory to provide centralized administration and tighter control over security.

The solution addresses the challenges of securing authentication and configuration management to aid compliance with industry and regulatory standards as follows:

• Securing the infrastructure by integrating with a PKI to provide authenticity, non-repudiation, and encryption

• Converging the various authentication sources into a single directory to enable a centralized point of administration and policy enforcement

• Using configuration management tools to generate infrastructure reports for audit and compliance purposes

In addition, you can use NSX for vSphere in EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud to enable a richer networking and security feature set than that provided by traditional solutions. VMware NSX for vSphere describes the enhanced networking and security features in NSX.



Monitoring and service assurance

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution features automated monitoring and management capabilities that provide IT administrators with a comprehensive view of the cloud environment to enable intelligent decision making for resource provisioning and allocation. These automated capabilities are based on a combination of EMC ViPR Storage Resource Management (ViPR SRM), VMware vCenter Log Insight, and VMware vCenter Operations Manager and use EMC plug-ins for ViPR, VNX, VMAX, and XtremIO to provide extensive additional storage detail.

For application administrators, the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud for Microsoft Applications solution provides detailed monitoring and alerting capabilities with Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange, and SharePoint deployments that are running on an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. These abilities enable in-depth analysis of realtime workloads on applications, which enables anomalies to be identified promptly, reducing potential performance degradation and any impact to users. vCenter Hyperic and VMware vCenter Operations Manager (vC Ops) are the components that make up this functionality.

Customized dashboards can be created to provide at-a-glance views of application availability and utilization. This enables application teams to fine tune applications to guarantee service levels across the various business groups configured on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. You can configure email notifications to ensure the appropriate application teams are notified in the event of a key performance indicator (KPI) or threshold breach. Figure 3 shows an example of a Microsoft Application dashboard on vC Ops.

Figure 3. Sample Microsoft application dashboard



Modular add-on components

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution provides modular add-on components for the following services:

• Application services

This add-on solution uses VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services to optimize application deployment and release management through logical application blueprints in vCAC. Users can quickly and easily deploy blueprints for applications and databases such as Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint, Oracle, and SAP.

The solution described in this guide is a modular add-on for Microsoft applications.

• Data protection: Backup

EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain systems provide a backup infrastructure that offers features such as deduplication, compression, and VMware integration. By using VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) workflows customized by EMC, administrators can quickly and easily set up multitier data protection policies that users can assign when they provision their virtual machines.

• Data protection: Continuous availability

A combination of EMC VPLEX virtual storage and VMware vSphere High Availability (HA) provides the ability to federate information across multiple data centers over synchronous distances. With virtual storage and virtual servers working together over distance, the infrastructure can transparently provide load balancing, realtime remote data access, and improved application protection.

• Data protection: Disaster recovery

This add-on solution enables cloud administrators to select disaster recovery (DR) protection for their applications and virtual machines when they provision their hybrid cloud environment. ViPR automatically places these systems on storage that is protected remotely by EMC RecoverPoint. VMware vCenter Site Recovery Manager automates the recovery of all virtual storage and virtual machines.

• Platform as a service

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution provides an elastic and scalable IaaS foundation for platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS). Pivotal CF provides a highly available platform that enables application owners to easily deliver and manage applications over the application lifecycle. The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud service offerings enable PaaS administrators to easily provision compute and storage resources on demand to support scalability and growth in their Pivotal CF enterprise PaaS environments.



• Public cloud services

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution enables IT organizations to broker public cloud services. The public cloud solution has been validated with VMware vCloud Air as a public cloud option that can be accessed directly from the solution's self-service portal by administrators and users. End users can provision virtual machines while IT administrators can use VMware vCloud Connector to perform virtual machine migration (offline) to vCloud Air from the on-premises component of their hybrid cloud.




Chapter 3: Microsoft Applications Solution Architecture

Chapter 3 Microsoft Applications Solution Architecture


Overview .................................................................................................................. 28

Key components ...................................................................................................... 29

Software resources .................................................................................................. 32



Overview

The addition of VMware vCAC Application Services and VMware vCenter Hyperic to the foundation EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution enables automated deployment of Microsoft applications and application monitoring during the application lifecycle.

Figure 4 shows the architecture of this EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution for Microsoft Applications solution.

Figure 4. EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud reference architecture

VMware vCAC Application Services enables you to construct application blueprints that enable customers to quickly deploy Microsoft applications on an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. vCAC Application Services blueprints are created and published to vCAC. These published blueprints contain virtual machine deployment information,



as well as any application deployments and ancillary scripts for deploying services to a virtual machine (Hyperic agents, for example).

Virtual machine and application blueprints can apply to single systems or multiple systems, covering both bare-metal server deployments and virtual machine deployments. From predefined blueprints, you can easily deploy multitier enterprise applications requiring multiple application, database, and Web components, and related services.

The integration of VMware vCenter Hyperic with vC Ops provides a single UI for monitoring a wide range of metrics relating to the availability and utilization of Microsoft applications in real time. The Management Pack for vCenter Hyperic provides metrics reports specific to Microsoft applications in vC Ops.

Key components

VMware vCloud Automation Center

VMware vCloud Automation Center (vCAC) enables customized, self-service provisioning and lifecycle management of cloud services that comply with established business policies. vCAC provides a secure portal where authorized administrators, developers, and business users can request new IT services and manage existing computer resources from predefined user-specific menus.

VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services

VMware vCAC Application Services, formerly VMware vCloud Application Director, automates application provisioning in the cloud, including deploying, configuring, and updating the application's components and dependent middleware platform services on infrastructure clouds. vCAC Application Services simplifies complex deployments of custom and packaged applications on infrastructure clouds.

VMware vSphere ESXi and VMware vCenter Server

VMware vSphere ESXi is a virtualization platform for building cloud infrastructures. vSphere enables you to confidently run your business-critical applications to meet your most demanding service level agreements (SLAs) at the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO). vSphere combines this virtualization platform with the management capabilities of VMware vCenter Server. This solution gives operational insight into the virtual environment for improved availability, performance, and capacity utilization.

VMware vCenter Orchestrator

VMware vCenter Orchestrator (vCO) is an IT process automation engine that helps automate the cloud and integrates the VMware vCloud Suite with the rest of your management systems. vCO enables administrators and architects to develop complex automation tasks within the workflow designer. The vCO library of pre-built activities, workflows, and plug-ins helps accelerate the customization of vCAC standard capabilities.

Data center virtualization and cloud management



VMware vCloud Networking and Security

VMware vCloud Networking and Security (vCNS) is a software-defined networking and security solution that enhances operational efficiency, unlocks agility, and enables extensibility to rapidly respond to business needs. It provides a broad range of services in a single solution, including virtual firewall, virtual private network (VPN), load balancing, and VXLAN-extended networks.

VMware NSX for vSphere

VMware NSX for vSphere is the next generation of software-defined network virtualization and offers additional functionality and improved performance over traditional network and security devices. This additional functionality includes the following:

• NSX logical routing and firewalls provide high line-rate performance distributed across many hosts instead of being limited to a single virtual machine or physical host.

• Distributed logical routers contain East-West traffic within the hypervisor where workloads reside on the same host.

• Logical load balancer enables load sharing across a pool of virtual machines with configurable health check monitoring and application-specific rules for high availability service, URL rewriting, and advanced Secure Sockets layer (SSL) handling. A distributed firewall enables consistent data-center-wide security policies.

• Security policies can be applied directly to security groups enabling greater flexibility in enforcing security policies.

• Routing protocols such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS), and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) are supported by NSX.

Where workloads on different subnets share the same host, the distributed logical router optimizes traffic flows by routing locally. This enables substantial performance improvements in throughput, with distributed logical routing and firewalling providing line-rate performance distributed across many hosts instead of being limited to a single virtual machine or physical host. NSX also introduces Service Composer, which integrates with third-party security services.

VMware vCenter Operations Manager

VMware vCenter Operations Manager (vC Ops) is the key component of the vCenter Operations Management Suite. It provides a simplified approach to operations management of vSphere and physical and cloud infrastructures. vC Ops provides custom dashboards to gain insights and visibility into the health, risk, and efficiency of Microsoft Applications running on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud.

VMware vCenter Hyperic

VMware vCenter Hyperic is a component of the VMware vCenter Operations Management Suite. It is used to monitor metrics specifically related to SQL Server, SharePoint, and Exchange.



VMware vCenter Log Insight

VMware vCenter Log Insight delivers automated log management through log aggregation, analytics, and search capabilities. With an integrated cloud operations management approach, Log Insight provides the operational intelligence and enterprise-wide visibility needed to proactively enable service levels and operational efficiency in dynamic hybrid cloud environments.

VMware IT Business Management Suite

VMware IT Business Management (ITBM) Suite provides transparency and control over the cost and quality of IT services. By providing a business context to the services that IT offers, ITBM helps IT organizations move from a technology orientation to a service-broker orientation, delivering a portfolio of IT services that aligns with the needs of business stakeholders.

EMC ViPR

EMC ViPR is a lightweight, software-only solution that transforms existing storage into a simple, extensible, and open platform. ViPR extends current storage investments to meet new cloud-scale workloads, and enables simple data and application migration out of public clouds and back under the control of IT (or the other way around). ViPR gives IT departments the ability to deliver on-premises, fully automated storage services at price points that are the same as, or lower than, public cloud providers.

EMC ViPR SRM

EMC ViPR SRM is storage resource management software that enables IT to visualize storage relationships, analyze configurations and capacity growth, and optimize resources to improve return on investment (ROI) in software-defined storage environments.

EMC VNX and EMC Symmetrix VMAX

EMC VNX and EMC Symmetrix VMAX are powerful, trusted, and smart storage array platforms that provide the highest level of performance, availability, and intelligence in the hybrid cloud. VNX and VMAX storage systems offer a broad array of functionality and tools, such as Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST™ VP), enabling multiple storage service levels to support ViPR-driven storage-as-a-service offerings in the hybrid cloud environment.

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution also supports the EMC XtremIO storage platform. This solution for Microsoft applications is validated on the VNX and VMAX storage platforms only.

EMC storage services



Software resources

Table 2 lists the application software components used in this solution. For a complete list of other EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud software requirements, refer to EMC E-Lab’s EMC Simple Support Matrix for EMC Hybrid Cloud 2.5 at elabnavigator.emc.com.

Table 2. Solution software requirements

Software Version Notes

Enterprise applications on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012, and 2012 R2 Supported operating systems

Microsoft Exchange 2010 and 2013 Versions of Microsoft Exchange supported in this solution

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 and 2012 Versions of Microsoft SQL Server supported in this solution

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 SP2 and 2013 SP2 Versions of Microsoft SharePoint supported in this solution

Additions to EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Foundation Infrastructure

VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services

6.1.1 Accelerates streamlining and optimization of applications deployment through logical application blueprints by leveraging preapproved, standardized OS and middleware components

VMware vCenter Hyperic 5.8.3 A component of vCenter Operations Manager


https://elabnavigator.emc.com/

Chapter 4: Provisioning Microsoft Applications

Chapter 4 Provisioning Microsoft Applications


Overview .................................................................................................................. 34

VMware vCAC Application Services .......................................................................... 35

Publishing application blueprints ............................................................................ 40

Service Catalog ........................................................................................................ 43

Approval policies ..................................................................................................... 45

Storage tiering ......................................................................................................... 46

Provisioning Microsoft Active Directory services ...................................................... 48

Provisioning Microsoft Exchange ............................................................................. 49

Provisioning Microsoft SQL Server ........................................................................... 55

Provisioning Microsoft SharePoint ........................................................................... 60



Overview

This chapter describes how to provision Microsoft applications on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, including: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, Microsoft SQL Server 2012, Microsoft SharePoint 2013 SP2, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 SP2, and Microsoft Exchange 2013.

The EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud provides a foundation for successful and consistent deployments of Microsoft applications. Generic blueprints are available for each application; these can be adapted to specific organizational requirements to guarantee a standard industry level of service. This chapter provides the high-level process and methodology required to successfully deploy the applications by using VMware vCAC Application Services with VMware vCAC as the portal. Figure 5 illustrates the workflow used in this solution for each of the Microsoft applications deployed.

Figure 5. Workflow for publishing a vCAC Application Services blueprint



VMware vCAC Application Services

VMware vCAC Application Services enables you to construct application blueprints by using a drag and drop GUI, which enables customers to quickly deploy Microsoft applications on an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. The blueprints are easily transportable across EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud environments. You can create application blueprints for each application and set of business requirements. You can then either deploy these blueprints directly from vCAC Application Services or publish them to a specific business group on vCAC where users can request them. For Microsoft application deployments, users can request multiple versions of SQL Server, SharePoint, and Exchange from a self-service portal. An application requested from vCAC allows application-related parameters to be modified prior to submitting the request.

In vCAC Application Services, you can download published application blueprints from the VMware Cloud Management Marketplace on VMware Solution Exchange (VSX) and import them into Application Services. For more information, visit the VMware Cloud Management Marketplace at https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/category_groups/cloud-management.

Microsoft application blueprints imported from the Marketplace provide the preconfigured services and scripts required to install and customize applications in an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud environment. Figure 6 shows a sample of the available blueprints and services. The blueprints imported from the Marketplace can be customized to meet the requirements of the application and the business.

Figure 6. VMware Solutions Exchange Marketplace blueprints samples

To enable application blueprints to be published to a particular business group on vCAC, a cloud provider needs to be registered on vCAC Application Services for that business group, as shown in Figure 7. The cloud provider enables vCAC Application Services to communicate with vCAC.

VMware Cloud Management Marketplace

Cloud providers


https://solutionexchange.vmware.com/store/category_groups/cloud-management


Figure 7. Adding a cloud provider

After a cloud provider is created for a specific business group, blueprints from vCAC can be added to that cloud provider and then to a logical template, as shown in Figure 8.

Figure 8. vCAC blueprints and logical templates added to a cloud provider

Important parameters, such as the minimum and maximum CPU size and memory, are defined within the vCAC blueprints. A reservation policy can be specified in a vCAC blueprint, or alternatively in a deployment environment on vCAC Application Services. The virtual machine templates used for application deployments are identified within a vCAC blueprint. As shown in Figure 9, the Clone from field on the vCAC blueprint is set to use a Windows 2012 virtual machine template. Also, CPU and Memory parameters are set to minimum and maximum values.



Figure 9. Setting build information for a vCAC cloud blueprint

Before application blueprints can be published from vCAC Application Services to vCAC, a deployment environment must be configured. A deployment environment can have several reservations associated with it, as shown in Figure 10. You can retrieve the list of cloud templates and networks available in the deployment environment and map them to logical templates and logical networks. You can also configure custom properties in Application Services to override the vCAC blueprint custom properties, map predefined disks to storage, or add to the existing properties. The nodes listed under VM Templates correspond to the components of the application in the application blueprint.

Figure 10. Deployment Environment

Deployment environments



Application architect roles manage the deployment design in vCAC Application Services. These roles then publish application services to vCAC for deployment to meet business requirements. Additionally, specific users within business groups (for example, finance or HR) can be given permission to request application deployments from the vCAC catalog. These requests are then approved or denied by the application owners.

A logical template associates a vCAC blueprint with a vCAC Application Services blueprint. A supported operating system version is specified in the logical template to ensure that only supported services can be used when constructing an application blueprint. The option to add a service to a logical template is available while building the logical template. Alternatively, services can be added while designing the application blueprint. Multiple vCAC blueprints can be added to one logical template. This allows application blueprints to be published with different reservation policies.

Services are a fundamental element in creating Microsoft application blueprints with vCAC Application Services. These services enable reusable parts of the code to be used for application installation and customization. Services can include scripts created with Windows PowerShell, the Windows Command line, and Linux Bash shell. External services can be designed for Microsoft applications that require scripts for deployment, such as a load-balancer or a preinstalled database service. Similar to building a logical template, tags and a supported operating system version are required when creating a service.

Predefined property values can be added to a service and can then be overridden by a user with the vCAC self-service portal. These properties are specific to the deployed application. The same service can house multiple scripts, such as an application installation, an application configuration, or an update script. These services are reusable and available for selection during the creation of a new application blueprint in vCAC Application Services, as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 11. Adding a service created on vCAC Application Services

Application owners and business groups

Logical templates

vCAC Application Services



When Microsoft applications are implemented, the scripts contained within the service will run after the virtual machine is deployed. A number of services can be added to a single logical template and a service installation order can be specified. The same order applies when deploying multiple virtual machines within the same application blueprint.

An application blueprint can be created after the required elements on vCAC Application Services are established, as shown in Figure 12. The required elements include a cloud provider, a deployment environment, one or more logical templates, and the services that contain the scripts. Tags are added to indicate the type of service used and the category in which to list the service.

Figure 12. Creating an application blueprint

vCAC Application Services provides a drag and drop GUI where logical templates are positioned on a blank canvas. Depending on the application requirements, multiple logical templates can be added and clustered. Services and application components are placed into logical templates, where associated scripts are executed during the deployment process.

Figure 13 shows an example of a completed application blueprint where components have been taken from the left and right menus to create reusable Microsoft application blueprints that can be deployed into the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud.

Compute resources and host name can be edited. The host name can also be assigned randomly on each execution of a blueprint by adding ${random}. After the application blueprint is created, it is ready to be published to the required business unit on vCAC where Microsoft applications can be requested.

Application blueprints



Figure 13. Drag and drop GUI in vCloud Application Manager

Publishing application blueprints

After application blueprints are created in Application Services, they can be published to the vCAC catalog. Figure 14 shows the Deploy option used to initiate the publishing process.

Figure 14. Publishing application blueprints to vCAC

During the publishing process, the Map Details option can be used to ensure correlation between vCAC Application Services logical templates and vCAC blueprints.



Figure 15. Mapping details during blueprint deployment/publishing process

Application properties can be edited prior to publishing the blueprint, as shown in Figure 16. Administrators can use the overridable checkbox associated with each service property to enable requesters to change property values at deployment. Compute resources can also be modified during the publishing process to ensure Microsoft applications are deployed on virtual machines that meet the performance requirements of a business group. The ability to edit parameters before publishing enables the same application blueprint to be published with different specifications.

Figure 16. Using the overridable option for an application parameter

The execution plan can be reviewed before an application blueprint is published, as shown in Figure 17. This provides the opportunity to review the sequence of an implementation prior to execution, which ensures that the correct application services are being deployed in the correct order.



Figure 17. Deployment Execution Plan

As shown in Figure 18, the last step in the publishing process is to review all application related properties and click Publish. The name and description of the item are then published and are later visible to the requester within the vCAC catalog.

Figure 18. Reviewing and publishing the application blueprint to the vCAC catalog

Application blueprints that are published from Application Services into vCAC are automatically activated. However, they are not visible in the services catalog until they are added to an applicable active service.



Service Catalog

The Service Catalog in vCAC shows the catalog items that an end user, application owner, or business group can request. After the request is approved, the application virtual machine is deployed and the owner is notified. Figure 19 shows the different applications and services available based on the solution’s deployments.

Figure 19. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog

Figure 20 shows a subset of catalog items for SQL Server 2012 that includes multiple deployments with varying virtual machine specifications.

Figure 20. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog for SQL Server 2012



Services can be activated and deactivated in vCAC. Activated services appear in the vCAC catalog to users with appropriate entitlements, as shown in Figure 21. When application administrators select a service, catalog items associated with the service can be viewed.

Figure 21. Viewing vCAC Services

Catalog items are published to vCAC from different sources. For this solution, the catalog items are from vCAC Application Services because they are all application deployments. All the catalog items are linked to a service, as shown in Figure 22.

Figure 22. Managing vCAC Catalog Items

vCAC actions enable an administrator to decide what actions users can perform for a specified catalog item, as shown in Figure 23. This helps to control the level of actions that users can perform. For example, the administrator might want to prevent a user from destroying a virtual machine so maintenance tasks can be performed, as specified by the business unit.

Services

Catalog items

Actions



Figure 23. Viewing vCAC actions

Entitlements in vCAC control which users or groups have access to the catalog items, as shown in Figure 24. This ensures that only specified users can request specific deployments. For example, administrators can specify that only SQL Server application owners can view and select SQL Server catalog items in vCAC.

Figure 24. Viewing vCAC Entitlements

Approval policies

Approval policies are created and edited in the Admin tab in vCAC for items being requested from the catalog. Approval policies are then added to a particular entitled catalog item by selecting the Modify Policy option. When an entitled catalog item has an approval policy set up, the approver will receive an email in their vCAC inbox when a request is submitted. The request can then either be approved or rejected with a justification message.

The deployment can proceed after the request has been approved. Implementing approval processes provides essential control over enterprise application deployments and provides important governance over EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud environments.

Entitlements



A wide range of approval policy types can be engaged. Approvals can be configured so that a single approver or multiple approvers are required for deployments. Figure 25 shows a view of an approval request sent to an approver.

Figure 25. Approving or rejecting a request

Storage tiering

The Microsoft applications deployed in this solution take advantage of storage tiering within EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. Applications are provisioned on storage tiers to meet the workload requirements of SQL Server, SharePoint, and Exchange. As described in Publishing application blueprints, a vCAC blueprint is selected when publishing an application blueprint. The vCAC blueprint enables the administrator to choose the correct storage tier for user applications, as shown in Figure 26.

Figure 26. Selecting a storage tier

When applications are requested from the vCAC Service Catalog, users can choose the appropriate catalog item and storage tier for which an application is to be deployed. Figure 27 highlights one of the storage tiers available for a SQL Server deployment.



Figure 27. Selecting a storage tier for SQL Server in vCAC

In this solution, we implemented storage tiers by using VMAX and VNX storage arrays. Storage offerings can include a dedicated storage type or mixed storage. We created the following multiple tiers based on the requirements for each application:

• Tier 1—Extreme performance tier with all flash drives

• Tier 2—Balanced capacity and performance tier with FC and SAS drives

• Tier 3—Capacity tier with large SATA and NL-SAS drives

The ability to select the required storage tier and compute resources from the vCAC catalog ensures that applications can perform workloads with guaranteed input/output operations per second (IOPS).

For example, for the SQL Server deployment, the all-flash tier was used to optimize performance. For the Microsoft Exchange Server deployment, the capacity tier was used to provide the required mailbox capacity and performance.

With EMC array-based technologies such as EMC FAST Cache and FAST VP, applications of varying I/O profiles can be added to the storage tiers. These storage offerings can be made up of different disk technologies. The workloads can then be promoted or demoted by EMC FAST technologies to best serve the operating requirements of an application. For this solution, EMC ViPR is a central component of EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud that centralizes and automates storage management on a single platform.

Through the vCAC self-service catalog, you can create volumes on ViPR and provision them to the required ESXi servers. This allows the tiers required for Microsoft applications to be assigned with a fully automated process. The volumes are then used to make up reservations on vCAC.



Note: For more details on storage tiering for EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, refer to the EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation Software-Defined Data Center Edition: Foundation Infrastructure Solution Guide.

Provisioning Microsoft Active Directory services

Cloud tenants require a Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure for successful deployments of Microsoft applications such as Exchange and SQL Server. Users need to provide information about their Active Directory infrastructure if it already exists. This information is necessary because these Microsoft applications are heavily integrated with Active Directory. Alternatively, administrators can deploy a new Active Directory infrastructure as described below.

Users with the appropriate rights can choose to deploy a Domain Controller and customize its settings to create an Active Directory domain before the application is provisioned. During deployment, the Domain Controller settings can be modified to specify an IP address, Domain Name, and administrator credentials. DNS can also be configured during Domain Controller deployment.

Provisioning a new Microsoft Active Directory Domain Controller includes the following tasks:

• Creating a Domain Controller application blueprint in vCAC Application Services

• Publishing the vCAC Application Services blueprint to vCAC

• Configuring services and entitlements for the Active Directory service

To provision Microsoft Active Directory from vCAC:

1. Select a Domain Controller from the catalog and click Request, as shown in Figure 28.

Figure 28. Provisioning Microsoft Active Directory from vCAC

2. After setting the required property values, click Submit.

3. After the Domain Controller is deployed, record the IP address and host name; these values are required when provisioning each Microsoft application.



Provisioning Microsoft Exchange

Microsoft Exchange Server application blueprints that are published from vCAC Application Services facilitate the deployment of multiple editions of Exchange Server across any business group within an organization, whether the business group is a highly utilized production environment or a test and development unit. These editions can be provisioned easily and are ready for use within minutes of being requested.

To provision Microsoft Exchange Server on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, the application architect must first create an application blueprint in vCAC Application Services, and then publish the blueprint into a vCAC catalog. The following are prerequisites for deploying Exchange from the EHC Hybrid Cloud self-service catalog:

• The Active Directory infrastructure with DNS services must exist before Exchange Server can be installed

• The account used to perform the Exchange installation must have the rights necessary to make changes to the Active Directory schema. Refer to Microsoft documentation for this information.

The following options are currently available for provisioning Microsoft Exchange Server:

• Option 1 deploys a stand-alone Exchange Server with a preconfigured number of CPUs, memory, and storage resources in the template for a specified number of users. Mailbox Server and Client Access roles are combined in this deployment.

• Option 2 deploys an Exchange Server in a high-availability configuration as part of an Exchange database availability group (DAG) with a preconfigured number of CPU, memory, and storage resources in the template for a specified number of users. This option deploys two servers in a DAG with two database copies. Mailbox Server and Client Access roles are combined in this deployment.

• Option 3 deploys a new Exchange Server with a preconfigured number of CPUs, memory, and storage resources to an existing DAG. Mailbox Server and Client Access roles are combined in this deployment.

Note: Option 2 is described in High Availability for Microsoft Applications on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. Option 3 is described in Elasticity for Microsoft Exchange.

The Microsoft Exchange Server deployments supported in this solution are as follows:

• Exchange Server 2010 Standard and Enterprise Editions on Windows Server 2012 and Windows 2008 R2

• Exchange Server 2013 Standard and Enterprise Editions on Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2



Note: If installing a Mailbox Server role as a member of a DAG, one of the following is required: Windows Server 2012 Standard or Datacenter Edition, Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard Edition or Datacenter Edition, or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Enterprise Edition. Windows Server 2008 R2 SP 1 Standard Edition does not support the features needed for DAGs.

To deploy a stand-alone Exchange Server, you must first configure the blueprint in vCAC Application Services. The application blueprint consists of services and custom scripts to automatically deploy and provision Exchange Server. In this solution, for a configuration of 1,000 users, the deployment option combines the Exchange Mailbox Server and Client Access roles on one server. For larger configurations, you can deploy separate servers to host each role. After the application blueprint is configured, you can create the deployment profile and publish the configuration in vCAC.

vCAC Application Services ensures that Exchange Server application blueprints can be easily created and customized. A number of components are required to create an application blueprint, including a blueprint on vCAC, a logical template on vCAC Application Services, and related services that contain the scripts necessary to install and customize Exchange Server.

For this solution, we created the installation and customization scripts with Microsoft Windows PowerShell. Figure 29 and Table 3 show the Exchange Server service properties created within the application blueprint. These properties include the organization name, administrator credentials, and source location for the installation files.

Additional properties can be introduced based on the deployment requirements of the application. You can edit the service properties to customize the installation of the Exchange Server prior to requesting the application. During installation, you can change these parameters, provided they are made overridable within the blueprint. You can customize and reuse the installation scripts for multiple blueprints.

Figure 29. Properties and actions for Exchange 2013 blueprint

Exchange Server application blueprints



Table 3 lists some of the Exchange application properties that can be configured within an application blueprint. Other properties can be added as required.

Table 3. Exchange 2013 blueprint property values

Property Blueprint value example Description

Domain exlab.local Your Windows Domain name

User Administrator Domain user account with admin rights to perform Exchange installation

Password Password User account password

Install_repository c:\software\Exchange Location of the Exchange installation files

Organization_name Exchange Your Exchange organization name

Based on the requirements of the Exchange Server deployment, you can create and add additional services to the application blueprint—for example, a Join Domain script service for which the specified user chooses which domain the Exchange Server virtual machine joins. You can also add services to Exchange Server application blueprints that enable application monitoring during or after the installation. Monitoring Microsoft Applications on page 23 provides more details.

The following describes how to publish a stand-alone Exchange 2013 Server, with both a Mailbox Server role and a Client Access Server role, into a vCAC catalog.

To provision a stand-alone Exchange Mailbox 2013 Server:

1. In vCAC Application Services, select Applications, and then select an Exchange 2013 application blueprint, as shown in Figure 30.

Figure 30. Selecting a stand-alone Exchange 2013 blueprint

Additional services

Publishing a stand-alone Exchange Server



2. Hover the cursor over the blueprint and click View Blueprint to view and edit the properties, as shown in Figure 31.

Figure 31. Editing Exchange 2013 blueprint properties

3. Select the template to view and edit the properties, such as the number of CPUs and memory, as necessary. Then click Deploy in the upper right corner, as shown in Figure 32.

Figure 32. Editing options for an Exchange 2013 blueprint

After the Exchange Server application blueprint has been created, it can be published to vCAC. Publishing application blueprints provides instructions for this process.

After services and entitlements are configured by the cloud administrator, a user (for example, an Exchange administrator) can view and select only specific Exchange Server catalog items. Figure 33 shows an example of the Service Catalog that the Exchange administrator can see based on user-assigned permissions.

Requesting Exchange Server from the vCAC catalog



Figure 33. Viewing vCAC Service Catalog items for Exchange

After a request has been initiated and a request description and reason are entered, the parameters specific to the Exchange Server and domain can be edited, as shown in Figure 34. These are the parameters that were made overridable in the application blueprint on vCAC Application Services prior to publishing to vCAC.

Figure 34. Viewing vCAC application parameters for Exchange Server



After a request is submitted, the deployment begins. The status of requests submitted by the user can be viewed in the Requests tab. After the request is complete, the state of the request changes to Successful. The details of the implementation, including information relating to the virtual machine deployed, can be viewed under the Items tab. The request remains in a Pending Approval State until approved if an approval process has been implemented.

When an Exchange Server request has completed, the status of the request changes from In Progress to Successful on the Requests page, as shown in Figure 35. Users can see the status of their own submitted requests on this page.

Figure 35. Confirming a successful Exchange Server deployment

The details of the virtual machine can be accessed by selecting Application Deployments in the Items tab, as shown in Figure 36.

Figure 36. Viewing a provisioned application for Exchange Server

To verify that the Exchange Server was deployed correctly, the Exchange Server administrator can connect to the virtual machine or log on to the Exchange admin center, as shown in Figure 37.

Validating an Exchange Server deployment



Figure 37. Exchange admin center: newly deployed Exchange Server verification

Provisioning Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server application blueprints published from vCAC Application Services facilitate the deployment of multiple editions of SQL Server across any business group within an organization, whether the business group is a highly utilized production environment or a test and development unit. These editions can be provisioned easily and are ready for use within minutes of being requested.

Approval processes can also be implemented in vCAC to guarantee that the application is being deployed based on the best practices within an enterprise.

The following versions of Microsoft SQL Server deployments are supported in this solution:

• SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, Standard, and Express Editions on Windows 2008 R2

• SQL Server 2012 Enterprise, Standard, and Express Editions on Windows 2012

In this solution, anti-affinity rules were enabled manually using the vSphere Web Client on all SQL Server virtual machines deployed. This ensures that AlwaysOn members are never located on the same ESXi host.

Anti-affinity rules for SQL Server virtual machines



vCAC Application Services ensures that SQL Server application blueprints can be easily created and customized. A number of components are required to create an SQL Server application blueprint on vCAC Application Services. These components include a blueprint on vCAC, a logical template on vCAC Application Services, and related services that contain the scripts necessary to install and customize SQL Server.

The installation and customization scripts can be created with Windows PowerShell. The properties in services used for SQL Server on vCAC Application Services can be edited before requesting the application, as shown in Figure 38. These properties include SQL Server related parameters, such as the instance name, the systems administrator password, query timeout values, and the installation path.

Additional properties can be introduced based on the requirements of the application. The service properties are used to create and build a SQL Server configuration file, which is used to customize the installation. The Setup location for the SQL Server installation files is an example of a property used. The installation files can be automatically downloaded from a central repository during deployment. The installation files can also be stored in the virtual machine template.

Figure 38. Viewing properties and actions for a SQL Server application blueprint deployment

Table 4 lists some of the SQL Server application properties that can be configured within an application blueprint. Other properties can be added as required.

SQL Server application blueprints



Table 4. SQL Server blueprint property values


Domain msapps.com Your Windows domain name

User Administrator Domain user account with admin rights to perform Exchange installation


Install_repository \\IP of Repository Server\Software\SQL2012\Enterprise

Location of the SQL Server installation files

SYSADMIN_ACCOUNT SQL The Windows groups or individual accounts to add to the sysadmin fixed server role

SA_PWD Password The password for the SQL Server sa account

Instance name Production The name of the instance of SQL Server

User connections 4 The maximum number of simultaneous user connections that are allowed on an instance of SQL Server

After the SQL Server application blueprint has been created, it can be published to vCAC. Publishing application blueprints provides instructions.

Based on the requirements of the SQL Server deployment, additional services can be created and then added to the application blueprint—for example, a Join Domain script where the requester can choose which domain the virtual machine will join. Services can also be added to SQL Server Application blueprints that enable application monitoring during or after the installation. Monitoring Microsoft Applications provides more details.

Figure 39 shows an example of the Service Catalog that a SQL Server user can use to view and select specific SQL Server catalog items, based on assigned permissions.

Additional services

Requesting a SQL Server



Figure 39. Viewing the vCAC Service Catalog for SQL Server

After a request has been initiated, users are prompted for a description and a reason. They can also specify the SQL Server instance and other related properties that were made overridable in the application blueprint in vCAC Application Services prior to publishing to vCAC, as shown in Figure 40.

Figure 40. Viewing vCAC application properties for SQL Server

The deployment can begin after a request is submitted. The status of requests submitted by a user can be viewed in the Requests tab. After the request is complete, the state of the request changes to Successful. The details of the implementation, including information relating to the virtual machine deployed, can be viewed in the Items tab.



A SQL Server user can then connect to the virtual machine and use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to view the SQL Server instance that was created. SSMS was installed during the deployment process for this solution.

If an approval process has been implemented, the request remains in a Pending Approval status until approved, as shown in Figure 41. Refer to Approval policies for more details.

Figure 41. Viewing Pending Approval of vCAC requests for SQL Server

To validate a SQL Server deployment in vCAC: 1. When a SQL Server request has completed, the status of the request changes

to Successful on the Request page. Users can see the status of their own submitted requests on this page, as shown in Figure 42.

Figure 42. Confirming a successful SQL Server deployment

2. The details of the virtual machine can be accessed by selecting Application Deployments in the Items tab, as shown in Figure 43.

Figure 43. Viewing a provisioned application

3. To verify that the SQL Server instance was deployed correctly, connect to the virtual machine and open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio, as shown in Figure 44.

Approving a request

Validating a SQL Server deployment



Figure 44. Example of a completed SQL Server deployment

Provisioning Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint application blueprints published from vCAC Application Services facilitate the deployment of multiple SharePoint editions across any business group within an organization, whether the business group is a highly utilized production environment or a test and development unit. These editions can be provisioned easily and are ready for use within minutes of being requested.

Approval processes can also be implemented in vCAC to guarantee that the application is being deployed based on the best practices within an enterprise.

The following Microsoft SharePoint deployments are supported for this solution:

• SharePoint 2010 on Windows 2008 R2

• SharePoint 2013 on Windows 2012

Figure 45 shows the SharePoint application deployment choices created by the administrator. These are visible in vCAC Application Services and multiple versions can be published to the vCAC catalog. SharePoint 2010 is pre-installed on the template virtual machine, so the only configuration needed is after the template virtual machine is cloned with the application blueprint.

Provisioning SharePoint 2010



Figure 45. vCAC Application Services SharePoint blueprints available for deployment

SharePoint application blueprints

Figure 46 shows the services available for SharePoint virtual machine deployments for the selected application blueprint. The blueprint contains multiple services with scripts for deploying and configuring new SharePoint virtual machines.

Figure 46. vCAC Application Services for SharePoint deployments

Figure 47 shows a SharePoint 2010 application blueprint in vCAC Application Services. Administrators can have multiple versions of a blueprint for different templates and services.



Figure 47. vCAC Application Services application blueprint for SharePoint

Figure 48 shows an example of different application server types, templates, and services that can make up the selected blueprint. A deployment can be created with the drag and drop GUI in vCAC Application Services.

Figure 48. SharePoint service types, templates, and services for the vCAC blueprint

A set of properties can be set up for each service. For SharePoint, the installation types and location of the installer are included in the properties, as shown in Figure 49.



Figure 49. vCAC Application Services service properties for a SharePoint blueprint

Table 5 provides a sample of the SharePoint application properties that can be configured within an application blueprint. Many other properties can be configured and added to blueprints, as required.

Table 5. SharePoint blueprint property values


Domain None Location of the SharePoint installation files

Sitename SharePoint site name Site name

DomainAccountUsername Domain user Domain account that will administer the SharePoint farm

DomainAccountPassword Password SharePoint Administrator (domain account) password

Port 7001 SharePoint application connection port

After the SharePoint 2010 Server application blueprint has been created, it can be published to vCAC. Publishing application blueprints provides instructions.



Requesting a SharePoint deployment

After the deployment is published and made visible in the Service Catalog, users can see and request the deployment, as shown in Figure 50.

Figure 50. Viewing SharePoint service catalog selections in the vCAC Service Catalog

When prompted, the user can add a description and a reason for the deployment request.

Figure 51. Adding information for a SharePoint deployment request

The user can then change the service options for the application, as shown in Figure 52.

Figure 52. Changing service options for a SharePoint deployment



Validating a SharePoint deployment

After the request is approved, the virtual machine is listed on the Machines page in vCAC, as shown in Figure 53.

Figure 53. Viewing deployed SharePoint virtual machine in vCAC

After the user is notified of the request approval, the user can log into the SharePoint virtual machine and access Central Administration to see the SharePoint configuration. For example, Figure 54 shows a small single-server SharePoint deployment.



Figure 54. SharePoint farm deployment information

The template used for the farm enables the user to then decide which type of site they want to create, as shown in Figure 55.

Figure 55. Selecting a SharePoint template



SharePoint 2013 requires the same deployment steps as SharePoint 2010. SharePoint 2013 is also pre-installed on a template virtual machine, so the required configuration is implemented after the virtual machine is deployed. The vCAC SharePoint 2013 blueprint shown in Figure 56 is different from the SharePoint 2010 blueprint.

Figure 56. Deploying a SharePoint 2013 blueprint from vCAC Application Services

In vCAC, a separate catalog item for SharePoint 2013 can be requested, as shown in Figure 57.

Figure 57. Viewing vCAC Catalog items for SharePoint 2013

Validating a SharePoint deployment

After deployment is complete, the user can log in and connect to Central Administration in SharePoint to check the deployment. Figure 58 shows a deployment with a default Human Resources template that can be used to specify which users and groups have access to the new SharePoint 2013 Human Resources site.

Provisioning SharePoint 2013



Figure 58. Viewing a successful SharePoint 2013 deployment

Figure 59 shows how users can now configure the SharePoint farm, as specified in the deployment.

Figure 59. Configuring a new SharePoint farm for HR


Chapter 5: High Availability for Microsoft Applications on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud

Chapter 5 High Availability for Microsoft Applications on EMC Enterprise

Hybrid Cloud


Overview .................................................................................................................. 70

High availability ....................................................................................................... 70

Microsoft Exchange DAG .......................................................................................... 70

Microsoft SQL Server with AlwaysOn Availability Groups ........................................ 75

Microsoft SharePoint availability ............................................................................. 78



Overview

When enterprise applications are deployed in a hybrid cloud, application administrators want to maintain application performance and high availability by following application design best practices.

Microsoft applications on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud are protected at multiple levels with this solution. The first level of protection is virtual machine protection with VMware vSphere High Availability (HA), which provides crash-consistent, virtual machine-level protection for applications. The next level of protection is consistent application protection, such as Exchange DAG and SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups. At the lower level, EMC storage automatically protects data and VMware NSX provides network redundancy. This chapter describes how to set up this solution for virtual machine and application protection with high availability.

High availability

VMware vSphere delivers the high availability required by most applications running in virtual machines, independent of the operating system and applications. vSphere HA provides uniform, cost-effective failover protection against hardware and operating system outages within a virtualized IT environment.

vSphere HA can monitor VMware vSphere hosts and virtual machines to detect hardware and guest operating system failures. It can also restart virtual machines on other vSphere hosts in the cluster without manual intervention when a server outage is detected. HA can also reduce application downtime by automatically restarting virtual machines when an operating system failure is detected.

Microsoft Exchange DAG

Microsoft Exchange 2013 environments are built for HA. In large deployments, client access servers can be deployed in arrays that are load balanced. Exchange Mailbox Servers are usually deployed in a database availability group (DAG) for HA.

A DAG is a group of Exchange Mailbox Servers that provides automatic database-level recovery from a database, server, or network failure. A DAG provides a non-shared storage failover cluster solution and uses asynchronous log shipping technology to distribute and maintain passive copies of each database in the DAG. DAGs can be extended to multiple sites to provide resilience and prevent data center failures.

A DAG with HA provides the availability required for most deployments. However, if hardware failures occur, utilization of the remaining client access servers can increase as new connections are established, and DAG protection is reduced as passive databases are activated. In physical deployments, administrators must address problems quickly to restore availability levels and mitigate any further outages. With a vSphere infrastructure, a hardware failure results in virtual machines being powered back on by vSphere HA, restoring availability levels quickly and keeping utilization balanced. This section provides recommendations for using vSphere HA with Exchange 2013.



In a physical environment, DAGs are often deployed with three or more database copies to protect from hardware and disk failures. In these environments, when a physical server or storage component fails, the DAG is still protected with the multiple database copies. This protection requires the overhead of managing the multiple database copies. Virtualized Exchange environments are typically designed with two database copies and use vSphere HA and RAID to protect from hardware and storage failures. vSphere HA restarts a DAG member if the host has a hardware failure, and RAID protects databases from storage failure.

When enabling a vSphere cluster for HA to protect DAG members, consider the following best practices:

• Members of the same DAG should not reside on the same vSphere host for an extended period of time when databases are symmetrically distributed between members. Allowing two members to run on the same host for a short period (for instance, after a vSphere HA event) does enable database replication to resume. However, DAG members should be separated as soon as the ESXi host has been restored.

• To adequately protect from an extended server outage, vSphere clusters should be designed in an N+1 configuration, where N is the number of DAG members. If a hardware failure occurs, causing vSphere HA to power on a failed DAG member, the DAG maintains the same level of protection at all times.

• Use anti-affinity rules to keep DAG members separated. vSphere HA might violate this rule during a power-on operation (one caused by a host failure), but vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) fixes the violation during the next interval. Refer to Anti-Affinity rules for Exchange virtual machines for more details.

Note: Anti-affinity rules were configured manually for this solution, using the vSphere Web Client after Exchange virtual machines were deployed.

vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) provides active load balancing of virtual machine workloads within a vSphere cluster. In addition to active monitoring and load balancing functions, DRS helps make a virtualized Exchange 2013 environment more agile.

DRS provides rules for keeping virtual machines apart or together on the same ESXi host or group of hosts. In an Exchange environment, the common use case for anti-affinity rules is to keep Exchange virtual machines with the same roles installed apart from each other. Client Access servers in a Client Access Server (CAS) array can run on the same ESXi host, but DRS rules should be used to prevent all CAS virtual machines from running on a single ESXi host.

Microsoft recommends symmetrically distributing mailbox databases among DAG members. Unlike traditional active/passive configurations, this design allows all DAG members to support active users as well as reserve a portion of compute power for failover capacity. In the case of failure of a single DAG member, all remaining members might take part in supporting the failed databases. Because of this, it is

vSphere HA with Exchange DAGs

vSphere DRS with Exchange DAG

Anti-Affinity rules for Exchange virtual machines



recommended that no two members of the same DAG run on the same ESXi host for an extended period.

Because of a DRS rule, anti-affinity rules enforce virtual machine separation during power-on operations and vSphere vMotion migrations. This includes times when a host is entering maintenance mode. If a virtual machine is enabled for vSphere HA and a host failure occurs, vSphere HA might power on a virtual machine and, in effect, violate a DRS anti-affinity rule. This occurs because vSphere HA does not inspect DRS rules during a recovery task. However, during the next DRS evaluation (set for every five minutes), the virtual machine is migrated to fix the violation. Figure 60 shows the Enable rule setting for the Anti-Affinity DRS rule for Exchange DAG servers.

Figure 60. Anti-Affinity DRS rule for Exchange DAG servers

For this solution, Microsoft Exchange high availability was achieved by deploying multiple servers in a DAG. Each mailbox server can have a copy of the database deployed on any server that is a member of the DAG.

With this solution, users can initially deploy a two-member DAG and later deploy additional servers to join the DAG.

The following is an example of how to deploy an Exchange 2013 Server in a DAG. These steps are similar to those for deploying an Exchange 2013 (stand-alone) blueprint:

1. In vCAC Application Services, select the Exchange 2013 DAG blueprint, as shown in Figure 61.

Provisioning an Exchange DAG



Figure 61. Selecting an Exchange server blueprint from Applications

2. Hover your cursor over the blueprint and click View Blueprint to view the properties, as shown in Figure 62.

Figure 62. Viewing the application blueprint for an Exchange 2013 DAG

3. Select the template to view and edit the properties, such as the number of CPUs and amount of memory. Then click Deploy in the upper right corner, as shown in Figure 63.

Table 6 lists the required blueprint property values for an Exchange DAG. These properties can be edited prior to requesting the application to customize the installation of the Exchange DAG. During installation, users can change the properties if they are made overridable within the blueprint.

Table 6. Exchange DAG blueprint property values



DAGIP 192.168.1.25 DAG IP address

DAGNAME DAG1 DAG Name




WitnessServer FSW-SRV File Share Witness server

WitnessDirectory C:\FSW File Share Witness server directory

User Administrator User account with admin rights to perform Exchange installation


DBNAME DB1 Database name

After the Exchange 2013 DAG application blueprint has been created, it can be published to vCAC. Refer to Publishing application blueprints for instructions.

Figure 63. Submitting a blueprint for deployment

After the cloud administrator configures services and entitlements, a user (for example, an Exchange administrator) can view and select Exchange DAG from the Service Catalog, as shown in Figure 64.

Figure 64. Selecting and deploying the Exchange DAG template in the vCAC catalog

4. When prompted, set the required values, click Next, and then click Submit to finalize your request.



Microsoft SQL Server with AlwaysOn Availability Groups

The AlwaysOn Availability Groups (AAG) feature is a high-availability and disaster-recovery solution that provides an enterprise-level alternative to database mirroring. Introduced in SQL Server 2012, AAG maximizes the availability of a set of user databases for an enterprise. An availability group supports a failover environment for a discrete set of user databases, known as availability databases, which fail over together. An availability group supports a set of read-write primary databases and one to eight sets of corresponding secondary databases. Optionally, secondary databases can be made available for read-only access and/or some backup operations.

SQL Server AAG deployment is an option in the Service Catalog that users can request, as shown in Figure 65.

Figure 65. Viewing the SQL Server AAG catalog items in vCAC

Before a SQL Server AAG item is published into the vCAC Service Catalog, the application blueprint is configured in Application Services by the application architect, as shown in Figure 66.

Provisioning SQL Server 2012 AAG

vCAC Application Services blueprint for SQL Server AAG



Figure 66. Viewing the AAG application blueprint

Figure 67 shows more detail about the vCAC Application Services blueprint.

Figure 67. Viewing the AAG application blueprint description

Figure 68 shows the blueprint deployment of two SQL Server virtual machines with interrelated dependencies. The arrows show the first SQL Server virtual machine to join the domain and the second dependent SQL Server virtual machine to join. The installation of SQL Server 2012 and the creation of a failover cluster for AAG occur independently on each virtual machine.

The first SQL Server virtual machine creates a database. The SQL Agent script runs on the first SQL Server virtual machine and the dependent AAG script runs on the second SQL Server virtual machine. This completes the process required to create a full AAG deployment on two SQL Server virtual machines.



Figure 68. Viewing AAG service dependencies

Figure 69 shows the server installation portion of the deployment plan (workflow) in vCAC Application Services. This is a different view of the workflow that shows each active task as it runs and completes.

Figure 69. Reviewing the task execution workflow for AAG

After the workflow is run, the AAG is listed in SQL Server Management Studio, as shown in Figure 70. The SQL Server application is now protected from node failure and read-only copies can be used for backup purposes on the secondary copy. Each SQL Server virtual machine can also be configured to be on different datastores to improve redundancy.

Verifying the SQL Server 2012 AAG deployment



Figure 70. Viewing the deployed availability replicas in SQL Server Management Studio

Microsoft SharePoint availability

As a federated application, Microsoft SharePoint has some built-in redundancy. For example, each farm can have multiple web front-ends (WFEs), so the failure of some WFEs does not lead to a farm outage or downtime for users. SharePoint Search can also be deployed redundantly (at least two copies of the Index and two copies of the Query role), so that the failure of one or more virtual machines in the farm does not cause down time.

The SQL Server back end can be split among multiple smaller SQL Server virtual machines, so that at least some of the sites (ContentDBs) can remain available when a SQL Server is down. SQL Server AlwaysOn availability groups can also be used to protect the backend SQL Server.

All the virtual machines are protected at another level by vSphere HA. Figure 71 shows that vSphere HA protection is turned on for the ESX hosts that host the resources and virtual machines for EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. With this solution, SharePoint farm virtual machines are protected from ESX host failure and the protection is crash-consistent.



Figure 71. SharePoint virtual machine protection by vSphere HA




Chapter 6: Monitoring Microsoft Applications

Chapter 6 Monitoring Microsoft Applications


Overview .................................................................................................................. 82

VMware vCenter Hyperic .......................................................................................... 82

VMware vCenter Operations Manager ...................................................................... 84

Monitoring Microsoft Exchange ............................................................................... 88

Monitoring Microsoft SQL Server ............................................................................. 91

Monitoring Microsoft SharePoint ............................................................................. 95



Overview

Microsoft applications residing on an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud can be monitored based on the requirements of specific business groups. VMware vCenter Hyperic and VMware vCenter Operations Manager (vC Ops) are integrated to ensure that vC Ops provides a single UI for monitoring a wide range of metrics relating to the availability and utilization of Microsoft applications in real time.

Key performance indicators (KPIs) can be applied to specific metrics to further ensure that application thresholds are being monitored in accordance with the best practices and service level agreements within an organization. Issues relating to utilization can be identified early and corrected or prevented.

To guarantee that Microsoft applications deployed in an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud have monitoring capabilities, each deployed application virtual machine requires a Hyperic agent to communicate with a monitoring server, also known as the Hyperic Server. The agent is installed seamlessly during the automated provisioning of the requested applications from the vCAC catalog.

VMware vCenter Hyperic

vCenter Hyperic provides application monitoring and is a core component of this solution. Using the Management Pack for vCenter Hyperic, downloadable from VMware Solution Exchange, Hyperic can be integrated with vC Ops thus providing a single UI for monitoring Microsoft applications.

A wide range of application metrics are enabled by default within Hyperic for Microsoft applications. Additional metrics can be enabled and viewed in vC Ops. Custom plugins are available for Microsoft applications, as shown in Figure 72. These plugins are downloadable from the VMware Solutions Exchange Marketplace.

Figure 72. vCenter Hyperic Plugin Manager



The latest versions of the Microsoft applications that are supported in this solution with vCenter Hyperic are as follows:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2012

• Microsoft Exchange 2013

• Microsoft SharePoint 2010

Further plugins are released on a regular basis and made available on the VMware Solution Exchange Marketplace to support additional versions.

The Hyperic agent is a requirement to allow communications between Microsoft application virtual machines and the vCenter Hyperic Server. vCAC Application Services automates the installation of the agent.

In this solution, automation was achieved by creating a Hyperic service for Windows on vCAC Application Services and adding this to the various application blueprints published to vCAC, as shown in Figure 73. All application deployments installed the Hyperic agent by default.

Figure 73. Adding the Hyperic Service on vCAC Application Services

Supported versions

vCenter Hyperic agent



After a deployment has completed successfully, applications and server resources can be monitored and are automatically discovered by Hyperic. Application resources must be added to the Hyperic Inventory to allow application-specific counters to be monitored by vC Ops. To do this, select Add to Inventory on the Hyperic dashboard, as shown in Figure 74.

Figure 74. Auto-Discovery window on vCenter Hyperic

Resources added to the Hyperic inventory appear under the Resources tab where they can be added to a group if required. Grouping resources allows Microsoft assets on an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud to be added as a collection of inventory resources within Hyperic.

VMware vCenter Operations Manager

Although vCenter Hyperic is required to monitor Microsoft applications running on an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, it is vC Ops that provides the portal needed to monitor and provide insight into the availability, utilization, and the overall health of SQL Server, SharePoint, and Exchange deployments. Custom dashboards can be created for each of the Microsoft applications and alerting can be enabled based on the thresholds required for each application. Notifications can be sent to the appropriate application teams after an application alert is triggered.

Custom UI dashboards can be configured to ensure that the correct metrics associated with applications are being monitored, as shown in Figure 75. The metrics enabled on vC Ops can be selected to best suit the monitoring requirement of the organization or specific business groups.

Auto-Discovery



Figure 75. vC Ops custom UI

To enable metrics to populate from Hyperic to vC Ops, the Management Pack for Hyperic must be installed and set up as follows:

1. From vCenter Operations Manager Administration, click Browse, choose the

PAK file, and then select Update, as shown in Figure 76.

vC OPS integration with Hyperic



Figure 76. Installing and configuring the Hyperic Management Pack

2. In vC Ops, click ADMIN to launch the support page.

3. In Adapters Info, confirm that Management Pack for Hyperic is listed, as shown in Figure 77.



Figure 77. Confirming the Management Pack for Hyperic is listed

4. In Hyperic, select Administration and then select HQ Server Settings.

5. Set the required vCenter Server details and click OK.

6. In vC Ops, select Environment > Configuration > Adapter Instances.

7. In Adapter Kind, select MP for Hyperic, as shown in Figure 78.

Figure 78. Managing adapter instances



8. In Add Adapter Instance, select Add New Adapter Instance, set the required values for the Hyperic and VC OPS servers, and click Test to verify the details, as shown in Figure 79.

Figure 79. Adding and setting up the Hyperic Adapter Instance

9. After test is complete, click OK.

Monitoring Microsoft Exchange

To support the monitoring of Microsoft Exchange 2013 on VMware vCenter Hyperic, a plugin must be added using the Plugin Manager. In this solution, when Exchange 2013 is requested from the service catalog, the Hyperic agent is installed as part of the deployment. In order for Exchange 2013 to be discovered and monitored, the Hyperic Agent on Windows must be run as a domain user with an Exchange Organization Management Role.

A wide range of metrics relating to Exchange 2013 can be enabled in Hyperic to monitor specific Exchange deployments across business groups in an EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud, as shown in Figure 80. After Exchange 2013 related metrics are enabled on Hyperic, the counters are visible in vC Ops. Individual components in Exchange 2013 environments, such as databases, database instances, and counters relating to Exchange mailboxes, can be monitored for availability, utilization, and performance.



Figure 80. Sample metrics in Hyperic

In vC Ops, metrics enabled on Hyperic can be configured as KPIs, and thresholds can be configured to ensure that Exchange administrators are notified if thresholds are exceeded. The ability to monitor Exchange-specific counters, such as failed or pending deliveries, ensures that administrators can resolve potential problems quickly.

KPIs and thresholds are configured by setting up an Exchange 2013 Attribute package for the Hyperic adapter in vC Ops. Figure 81 shows the All Attributes package for Exchange 2013 in vC Ops. Existing attribute packages can be edited or new packages can be created.

Exchange 2013 Metrics



Figure 81. Sample Exchange attribute package

Some of the key Exchange 2013 metrics that can be monitored in vC Ops include:

• IO Database Reads/Sec metric monitors the rate of database reads per second

• IO Database Writes/Sec counter monitors the rate of database writes per second

• Client RPC Failed metric monitors the number of failed client Remote Procedure Calls

• Failed Deliveries Per Second indicates the number of failed delivery messages per second

• Pending Deliveries counter identifies the current number of pending message deliveries

Note: For a full range of Exchange metrics supported by vCenter Hyperic, refer to the VMware vCenter Hyperic Resource Configuration and Metrics Guide on the VMware website.

Email is a mission critical application and it is vital that any delays in delivery or degraded performance are identified early and the cause of the slowdown determined quickly. The ability to create customizable at-a-glance dashboards of Exchange 2013 environments by using vC Ops enables application teams to view the overall health and performance of Exchange Servers, services, and mail traffic running on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. This enables potential problems to be identified before end users experience any decline in the email service. Figure 82 shows a custom

Microsoft Exchange dashboards



dashboard created on vC Ops for Exchange 2013 deployments. The dashboard shows the overall health of Exchange environments as well as Exchange 2013 alerts and key metrics such as messages sent per minute and I/O database reads and writes. Dashboards such as these can be created to suit the specific monitoring requirements of an organization.

Figure 82. Exchange dashboard

Monitoring Microsoft SQL Server

To monitor SQL Server from vC Ops, a custom plugin is required on Hyperic. This plugin is available from the VMware Solutions Exchange Marketplace and is installed using the plugin manager on Hyperic. After the plugin has been installed, Hyperic can monitor and report SQL Server metrics. When the metrics required have been enabled on Hyperic, they can be viewed from vC Ops and added to custom dashboards. The versions of SQL Server monitored in this solution were Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2.

vCenter Hyperic supports a range of SQL Server metrics to ensure instances and databases are utilized and performing within the expected thresholds of a business group on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. A number of metrics are enabled by default on Hyperic. Additional metrics can be turned on depending on the SQL Server monitoring needs within an organization.

In order for these metrics to be viewed on vC Ops, they must first be enabled for collection within Hyperic. From vC Ops, the SQL Server metrics enabled can be viewed and modified within attribute packages. KPIs and alert thresholds can be set, as shown in Figure 83.

SQL Server metrics



Figure 83. Managing attribute packages

This solution enables valuable SQL Server metrics relating to availability and utilization to be monitored 24x7, enabling application administrators to prevent potential performance or capacity related problems before they arise.

SQL Server metrics can be presented in an at-a-glance dashboard where individual metrics and trending can be viewed. Dashboards such as these can be used to plan for future workloads on SQL Server databases. Figure 84 shows the Resources Details view of a SQL Server deployment monitored by vC Ops.



Figure 84. Viewing SQL Server Resource Details

Some of the key SQL Server metrics that can be monitored in vC Ops are:

• SQL Server Availability ensures that SQL Server is available 24x7

• User Connections monitors the number of connections to a SQL Server instance

• Transactions monitor the number of active transactions to a SQL Server database

• SQL Server Cache memory monitors the amount of memory that is used by SQL Server

• Database free Percent measures the percentage of disk space that is available for a SQL Server database

• Log Growth measures the growth of transaction logs

Note: For a full range of SQL Server metrics supported by vCenter Hyperic, refer to VMware vCenter Hyperic Resource Configuration and Metrics Guide on the VMware website.

SQL Server dashboards can be created and customized in vC Ops to provide a quick way to monitor Microsoft SQL Server and database metrics. A range of widgets can be added to SQL Server dashboards, each with specific metrics. The dashboards can be used to easily identify and quickly correct any possible problems. Figure 85 shows the editing page used to customize dashboards with a selection of widgets to create a unique view for SQL Server databases and database instances.

SQL Server dashboards



Figure 85. Customizing a SQL Server dashboard

The custom dashboard shown in Figure 86 is used to monitor alerts relating to KPIs created for SQL Server-specific metrics. For example, if SQL Server cache memory is underutilized for a specific period, an alert is triggered and appears on the dashboard. An email notification is also sent to the administrators responsible for the SQL Server resource that logged the alert.

Custom relationships were also added to ensure that the underling virtual environments on which Microsoft SQL Server instances are deployed are also being monitored. Metric Graphs were used to monitor counters such as lock-wait times and page lookups. The overall health of all SQL Server resources can be viewed in the Resources widget, as shown in Figure 86.

Figure 86. Customized SQL Server customized dashboard



Monitoring Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint monitoring capabilities are performed from vC Ops. A custom plug-in for Hyperic is also required for SharePoint. This plug-in is downloadable from the VMware Solutions Exchange Marketplace. Although this solution supports the provisioning of SharePoint 2010 and SharePoint 2013, the monitoring capabilities in the solution relate to SharePoint 2010 only.

A wide range of SharePoint metrics and counters relating to core SharePoint components can be monitored from vC Ops, including Windows services, web server services, and cache publishing services. These metrics can be enabled for the specific requirements of an organization.

By default, a number of SharePoint specific metrics are enabled in Hyperic. Additional metrics can be configured to automatically be visible in vC Ops for customizing dashboards for individual SharePoint instances or SharePoint farms.

Through vC Ops, KPIs can be configured by using discovered metrics. This enables SharePoint administrators to identify problems before they arise. The KPIs are configured by selecting attribute packages and then choosing the SharePoint Resource Kind in vC Ops, as shown in Figure 87.

Figure 87. Managing attribute packages for SharePoint

Figure 88 shows a Resource Details page for a SharePoint standalone server; here individual metrics can be graphed and used to identify trending of key counters such as incoming page requests and SQL query response times. This enables administrators to predict futures workloads on SharePoint environments deployed on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud.

SharePoint server metrics



Figure 88. Viewing SharePoint Resource Details

Some of the key SharePoint metrics that can be monitored include:

• Incoming Page Request Rate returns the number of incoming requests

• Executing SQL Queries calculates the average execution time of SQL queries by the databases used for SharePoint deployments

• Reject Page Request Rate identifies the number of requests rejected

• Responded Page Request Rate monitors the number of requests returned

• Executing Time/Page Request monitors the average execution response time of requests

Note: For a full range of SharePoint metrics supported by vCenter Hyperic, refer to VMware vCenter Hyperic Resource Configuration and Metrics Guide on the VMware website.

Customized vC Ops dashboards can be created to provide an at-a-glance view of key metrics associated with Microsoft SharePoint. Dashboards such as these can be used to easily identify any anomalies that may occur, allowing remedial action to be taken quickly. As shown in Figure 89, required widgets can be dragged onto a SharePoint template and customized. A range of widgets can be added to SharePoint dashboards, each allowing specific metrics to be included.

SharePoint dashboards



Figure 89. Creating a custom SharePoint dashboard

Figure 90 shows a custom dashboard that was created for this solution to monitor a number of SharePoint standalone servers. This dashboard is divided into four widgets where metric graphs are used to monitor SharePoint services such as the web services and Page requests.

The Application Overview window displays the status of the overall health and availability of SharePoint components such as Windows SharePoint Service content (WSS_Content) and SQL resources. The Mashup charts were created in this solution to assist in identifying any anomalies that might occur. An Alerts view was added to ensure that SharePoint alerts can be identified quickly. Notification of these alerts can also be sent to SharePoint administrators responsible for the resources. Similar dashboards can be used to monitor SharePoint farms.

Figure 90. Customized SharePoint dashboard




Chapter 7: Elasticity for Microsoft Applications

Chapter 7 Elasticity for Microsoft Applications


Overview ................................................................................................................ 100

Threshold alerts ..................................................................................................... 100

Elasticity for Microsoft Exchange ........................................................................... 101

Elasticity for Microsoft SQL Server ......................................................................... 104

Elasticity for Microsoft SharePoint ......................................................................... 105



Overview

Elasticity of EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud can involve scaling resources, such as CPU, memory, or storage, for a virtual machine or for an application. If an application no longer needs the same amount of resources, then these can be adjusted on demand.

Multi-server applications and platforms add another level of elasticity, because the addition of another virtual machine can expand the service capability. For example, the addition of a Web front-end server to a SharePoint farm enables the farm to expand to accommodate more users. Servers can also be retired when an application or platform no longer needs them.

In this way, the organization has better, more intelligent control over cloud resources and can adapt to constant change and varied demands.

Threshold alerts

Application-specific alerts and thresholds can be configured from vCenter Operations Manager. With notifications, the correct application personnel are notified when thresholds are breached. This ensures that both over- and under-utilized application resources can be scaled up or down, allowing administrators to increase or decrease application resources when required.

Alerts triggered on vC Ops are visible either from the Alerts Overview page shown in Figure 91 or from customized at-a-glance dashboards. Alternatively, application teams can be notified by email.

Figure 91. Alerts Overview

Alerts specific to Microsoft applications can be configured to trigger based on particular thresholds set within an attribute package. Different application servers running on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud might have different threshold requirements for application-specific counters. In this case, additional attribute packages can be created and allocated to certain resources.

For each of the metrics used to monitor Microsoft applications, thresholds and KPIs can be enabled to ensure essential counters are operating in accordance with the requirements of a business group. Figure 92 shows the advanced configuration settings of an Exchange alert, where Critical, Intermediate, Warning, and informational thresholds can be assigned.



Figure 92. Configuring an alert

vCenter Operations Manager enables email notifications to be configured to ensure that Microsoft Application teams are notified when threshold limits are reached. Configuration details for email notification on vC Ops are described in VMware vCenter Operations Manager Documentation on the VMware website. To enable application-specific notification, the adapter kind must be specified in the emailFilter.xml file where the adapter kind name is HyperApiAdapter.

Elasticity for Microsoft Exchange

When an Exchange administrator requests an additional server to be added to the infrastructure, the request can be fulfilled by the deployment of a new Mailbox server that will be automatically added to an existing DAG. After the server is deployed, the Exchange administrator has full control of the server and can manually configure database replication options and other properties as necessary.

The following is a high-level overview of the deployment process. The process starts with publishing a prepared blueprint from vCAC Application Services into vCAC and configuring it to be available in the self-service catalog.

The vCAC Application Services blueprint is specifically created for adding a new Exchange Server to an existing DAG, as shown in Figure 93.

Email notification



Figure 93. Blueprint for Exchange 2013 DAG expansion

Figure 94 shows a blueprint with several specific services, each with configuration properties and actions that run a PowerShell script. The script adds the new Exchange virtual machine to an existing Windows Domain and specified DAG.

Figure 94. Exchange 2013 DAG expansion blueprint Services

Table 7 lists the required property values for the Exchange DAG service that is included in the Exchange 2013 DAG expansion blueprint. These properties can be edited to customize the installation prior to requesting the application. During installation, the parameters can be changed if they are made overridable within the blueprint.

Table 7. Exchange DAG expansion blueprint property values


Install_repository c:\software\Exchange Location of the Exchange installation files

Organization_name Exchange Your Exchange Organization name





DAGIP 192.168.1.25 DAG IP address

DAGNAME DAG1 DAG Name

User Administrator User account with admin rights to perform Exchange installation


DBNAME DB1 Database name

After the blueprint is published into a vCAC Service Catalog, users with the correct permissions can request it, as shown in Figure 95.

Figure 95. vCAC Exchange DAG expansion request information and description

Users must then fill in a few details to justify the deployment, as shown in Figure 96.

Figure 96. vCAC Exchange DAG expansion properties

Users have more control over where and how the new Exchange Server virtual machine is deployed by accepting the defaults or changing the configurable properties, as shown in Figure 97.



Figure 97. Deployment configuration properties for Exchange DAG expansion

After successful deployment, the new Exchange Server virtual machine is visible to the user in the vCAC Items tab. As soon as Exchange Server is deployed, the Exchange administrator can perform any necessary configuration actions—for example, allowing configuring database replication to the newly deployed server.

Elasticity for Microsoft SQL Server

SQL Server application administrators can use vC Ops alerting and notification, as shown in Figure 98, to identify when they need to increase or decrease the resources used by a SQL Server deployment. In this solution, for example, alert thresholds were implemented to notify the applicable application administrators when CPU usage ran under 20 percent for a defined number of wait cycles.

Figure 98. SQL Server alert

After these alerts were triggered, an email notification was sent to appropriate recipients. The recipients were defined in the emailFilter.xml file on the vC Ops analytics virtual machine. The notification contained the alert details as well as the responsible SQL Server name. The filter rule within the file must contain the adapter kind and the resource kind in the format of: HypericApiAdapter:MsSQL.

Remedial action was taken by using vCAC to decrease the amount of CPU resources, as shown in Figure 99, where the number of CPUs was changed from four to two. This



opened up resources within EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud and allowed the CPU resources to be used by applications requiring additional compute assets. This operation required a reboot of the SQL Server virtual machine, which can be set up as a scheduled task in vCAC.

Figure 99. Editing CPU resources for SQL Server

After the request was submitted to decrease the number of CPUs used, the status of the request could be viewed under the Requests tab on vCAC. Through the monitoring capabilities of vC Ops and the use of vCAC, SQL Server deployments running on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud can be scaled up or down depending on the requirements of a business group, as illustrated in this use case.

Elasticity for Microsoft SharePoint

For a federated platform like SharePoint, the addition of a virtual machine can easily expand the capacity of the farm and allow more users to connect. Specific SharePoint roles, such as WFE, Excel Services, and Search, can be added as necessary so that the farm adapts directly to specific requirements. In our example, we added a WFE to the SharePoint farm so that more users could be accommodated during a busy period. When the busy period is over, the extra WFE can be removed so that resources are not wasted.

Figure 100 shows the CPU on a WFE going over 80% on the SharePoint Intranet farm. The graph and alert are from a customized dashboard in vC Ops. To alleviate the load on this WFE, we added extra WFEs to the farm.



Figure 100. CPU usage for SharePoint WFE in vC Ops

We created a blueprint specifically for adding a WFE to the existing, multi-virtual machine SharePoint 2010 Intranet farm. This enabled us to add as many WFEs as necessary to expand the farm, as shown in Figure 101.

Figure 101. SharePoint application blueprint

Figure 102 shows the blueprint with several specific properties and an Install action that runs a PowerShell script to add the new virtual machine as a WFE to the farm.

SharePoint 2010



Figure 102. SharePoint Application blueprint properties and actions

In the Service Catalog in vCAC, a user with adequate permissions can request the addition of the WFE, as shown in Figure 103.

Figure 103. SharePoint 2010 WFE selection from the vCAC catalog

The user then fills in a few details to justify the deployment, as shown in Figure 104.



Figure 104. SharePoint 2010 request information

Users can have more control over where and how the virtual machine is deployed by changing the blueprint properties. For additional servers, users can use the default properties as shown in Figure 105; these are usually correct after the initial configuration.

Figure 105. SharePoint 2010 request properties

After successful deployment, the new virtual machine is visible to users in the Items tab, as shown in Figure 106.



Figure 106. Provisioned SharePoint 2010 virtual machines in vCAC

The script automatically adds the new virtual machine to the SharePoint farm and sets it up as a WFE. Within a few minutes, the new WFE is ready to service requests from users, as shown in Figure 107.

Figure 107. SharePoint 2010 Farm information



The script can also change DNS or a load balancer to ensure that users are intelligently redirected to the new WFE as part of the WFE group. This can also be done manually after deployment.

After the new WFE has completed its task and accommodated the user load, it might not be used again until the situation reoccurs. In this case, the administrator can retire the additional WFE and allow its resources to be used for other cloud services. The WFE should first be removed from the SharePoint farm and DNS/load balancers, so that it is no longer servicing requests. The administrator or user can then choose to destroy the virtual machine in vCAC, as shown in Figure 108.

Figure 108. Options for virtual machines in vCAC

After the user confirms the Destroy action, as shown in Figure 109, the virtual machine is shut down and deleted. All its reservations and resources are returned to the reservation pool.



Figure 109. Destroying virtual machine confirmation options in vCAC

The same as for SharePoint 2010, a blueprint and catalog Item for adding a WFE to a SharePoint 2013 farm can be created, as shown in Figure 110.

Figure 110. SharePoint 2013 WFE selection from the vCAC catalog

SharePoint 2013



Figure 111 shows the request information and properties that are required from the user.

Figure 111. SharePoint 2013 request information and properties

The new SharePoint WFE is automatically added to the farm by the PowerShell script, as shown in Figure 112. The script can also add the WFE to DNS and/or load balancers, so that user traffic is redirected to the new WFE. This can also be done manually, if necessary.



Figure 112. SharePoint 2013 Farm information




Chapter 8: Conclusion

Chapter 8 Conclusion


Summary ................................................................................................................ 116

Findings ................................................................................................................. 116


Chapter 8: Conclusion

Summary

This EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud solution for Microsoft Applications solution enables on-demand provisioning and management of Microsoft applications, including SQL Server, SharePoint, and Exchange, from a self-service portal. vCAC Application Services are used to configure Microsoft application blueprints that contain the necessary scripts to install and customize application deployments. These scripts can be modified to suit the needs of the application and the business.

With this solution, application administrators can deploy applications on storage tiers and virtual resources to optimize the performance needs of the application.

Monitoring provides consistent service levels for Microsoft applications and their underlying virtual infrastructure, and triggers alerts when these service levels are breached.

Applications can be scaled up and down by using vCAC Application Services application blueprints. This offers a truly elastic solution for the cloud.

Findings

This solution enables Microsoft applications to be deployed across any business group running on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. The following are key findings of this solution:

• Accelerated and automated provisioning—Microsoft applications can be provisioned automatically from a self-service portal on selectable infrastructure resources.

• Monitoring—Microsoft applications running on EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud can be monitored automatically by using vCenter Hyperic and vC Ops.

• Availability—vSphere HA clusters and DRS, in combination with Exchange DAG and SQL Server AAG, provide protection to applications in EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud.

• Server virtualization—Virtual resources of Microsoft applications can change based on utilization and performance needs.

• Elasticity—The addition of application resources can be requested from a self-service portal. This includes adding a DAG copy to an Exchange Server and a WFE to a SharePoint farm. These operations are fully automated. Additional application resources can then be destroyed to free up cloud resources, as necessary.


Chapter 9: References

Chapter 9 References


EMC documentation ............................................................................................... 118

VMware documentation ......................................................................................... 118

Microsoft documentation ....................................................................................... 118


Chapter 9: References

EMC documentation

The following documents, located on the EMC Online Support or EMC.com websites, provide additional and relevant information. Access to these documents depends on your login credentials. If you do not have access to a document, contact your EMC representative.

• EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution documentation

• EMC ViPR documentation

• EMC VNX and VMAX documentation

• EMC Unisphere and Enginuity documentation

• EMC Solutions Enabler and EMC SMI-S Provider documentation

• EMC PowerPath/VE documentation

• Microsoft Exchange Server Best Practices and Design Guidelines for EMC Storage

• Microsoft SQL Server Best Practices and Design Guidelines for EMC Storage

• Microsoft SharePoint Best Practices and Design Guidelines for EMC Storage

VMware documentation

Refer to the following documentation on the VMware website:

• VMware vCloud Automation Center documentation

• VMware vCenter Operations Manager documentation

• VMware vCloud Automation Center Application Services documentation

• VMware vCenter Hyperic documentation

• VMware vCenter Hyperic Resource Configuration and Metrics Guide

• Microsoft Exchange 2013 on VMware Best Practices Guide

• Microsoft Exchange 2013 on VMware Design and Sizing Guide

• Microsoft Exchange 2013 on VMware Availability and Recovery Options Guide

Microsoft documentation

Refer to the following documentation on the Microsoft TechNet website:

• Microsoft Windows Server documentation

• Microsoft Active Directory documentation

• Microsoft SQL Server documentation

• Microsoft Exchange documentation

• Microsoft SharePoint documentation


https://support.emc.com/

http://www.emc.com/

http://www.vmware.com/

http://technet.microsoft.com/library/default.aspx

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EMC Enterprise Hybrid Cloud 2.5.1, Federation SDDC Edition: Microsoft Applications Solution Guide

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