http://ws-ugi.spaces.live.com

Adventures in Virtualisation: The Hosting Industry

Aidan Finn

Windows Server 2008 User Group: http://ws-ugi.spaces.live.comMy Blog: http://joeelway.spaces.live.com

Agenda

• My background• Challenges and Opportunities in hosting• Virtualisation in the Hosting Industry

My Background

• Working in IT since 1996.• Worked in all sorts of large infrastructures.• Started doing things “my way” in 2003.• Working in hosting industry for 12 months.

Now employed by C Infinity.• Working with Windows Server 2008 since last

year.

Oh!

• I am slightly biased towards Microsoft-based solutions

• I’m more familiar with HP hardware and terminology ... IBM tends to have similar solutions.

Hosting – What is it?

• 3 Categories:– Website/Email hosting– Co-Location– Server hosting/outsourcing

• Motivations of customer:– Security– Reduce cost of ownership– Avail of high quality bandwidth– Budgeting– Remote disaster recovery

Hosting – What is it?

• Types of installation?– 100% server outsourcing– Web applications– Intranet applications– Disaster recovery– Virtual Desktops– Terminal Server applications

Hosting – What is it?

• Types of administration outsourcing?– 100% outsourced.– 0% outsourced: co-location.– Operating system and hardware. *

Hosting – The Challenges

• Space• Power• More machines, more management, less staff• Service Level Agreements• Flexibility• Disaster Recovery• Business sense: Realistic technology and budget

Hosting – The Solution?

Everyone’s talking about blade servers and virtualisation.

“Cloud Computing”

Cloud Computing

My Definition:• A fabric or matrix of technologies. • Utilise the correct technologies for each

service.• Fault tolerant, agile and scalable.• Well managed with automation – often

forgotten.

Virtualisation/Redundancy At Every Level

• Firewalls: Clustered.• Core Switches: Redundant.• Machines: Virtualisation available.• Server Hardware: Redundant.• Storage/Network Connections: Abstracted

and redundant.• Storage: Virtualised and redundant.

Machine Virtualisation & Hosting

• Less hardware• Less power consumption• Rapid deployment• Mobility of machines• Lower operating costs = more competitive =

more profit• And it’s “Green Computing”

Pre-Virtualisation

Post-Virtualisation

Dude, where’s my hardware gone?

Virtualise Every Machine?

Nooooooooo!

Virtualise Every Machine?

• Domain Controllers?• I/O Intensive machines?• CPU Intensive machines?• Does your application have support?

Which Machine Virtualisation Solution?

• Two big players: Microsoft and VMware.

VMware ESX/VI:• Mature, relatively well known, trusted. Limited

hardware, difficult to manage.Microsoft Hyper-V:• Based on Windows, wide hardware coverage, easy to

manage, heavily tested. New and will take time for market to trust it.

MS or VMware For Me?

Important – think long term! :• Costs• Skills availability• Manageability• Will the vendor still be in this market in 5-7 years

time?

I’d choose Microsoft Hyper-V.

A Cloud

ILO

Fibre Channel Network / SAN

Ethernet Backplane

Clustered Firewalls

Core Switches

Blade Servers

Virtual Connects

RedundantFibre Channel Switches

San Controllers

Remote HardwareAdministration

Remote HardwareAdministration

Remote SANAdministration

Remote NetworkAdministration

Why Blade and SAN?

• Flexible storage• Denser CPU deployment• Less power consumption

• There might be larger capital/installation costs.

• Operating costs are lower.

Virtual Connections

• Abstracted MAC address• Abstracted World Wide Name

• Diskless Servers• Servers => Replaceable Appliances

Server Hardware Virtualisation

• HP Chassis: 16 Servers• Deploy 15 + 1 Hot Spare

Production server dies => Hot Spare started

Virtualised StorageTraditional Disk Virtual Disk

RAID Array -> LUN -> Partition Disk Group -> Virtual Disk (RAID) -> Partition

Why Virtualise Storage?• Quick to deploy• Quick to modify

You’ve Got To Manage This!

• Microsoft System Center– Operations Manager 2007 SP1– Configuration Manager 2007 SP1 (in testing)– Virtual Machine Manager 2008 (in testing)– Service Desk 2009, 2010 or 2011?

• Cradle-to-Grave management• Integration• Customer visibility• Reduced administration – really!

A Total SolutionClustered Firewalls

Core Switches

Remote HardwareAdministration

Co

re S

witc

h V

LA

N’s

Master VLAN

Domain Controllers

Customer Remote Admin VLAN

Terminal ServicesGateway

Terminal Server

Management VLAN

SCOM 2007 SCCM 2007 VMM 2008

Hyper-V Host VLAN

Customer 1 VLAN

Virtual Machine Physical Machine

Customer N VLAN

Virtual MachineVirtual Machine

Terminal ServicesWeb Access

Summary

• What does the hosting industry do?• What solutions are they deploying now.• Virtualisation of machines.• Virtualisation of storage and hardware.• Managing the infrastructure.• A complete solution.

Thanks To ...

... Alex Yuschenko for presenting at the Windows Server 2008 User Group (Ireland)

http://ws-ugi.spaces.live.com

Next User Group Event

“Windows Server 2008” by Mark Minasi• May 30th in Microsoft, Sandyford.• In cooperation with Microsoft Ireland• Introduction to Server 2008• IPv6 – Why should you care and how does it work?• Server Core – Introduction and How to manage it.

This is a very rare opportunity to see Mark Minasi on this side of the pond – don’t miss it!

http://tinyurl.com/5h8du7

The End

Aidan Finn

afinn@cinfinity.ieMy Blog: http://joeelway.spaces.live.comUser Group: http://ws-ugi-spaces.live.com